Quotes

[writing about the films of Bruno Dumont] What has remained constant in his filmmaking is the will to investigate man and his gray areas, be they relational or existential. Thy neighbor viewed as an obstacle, evil as an unavoidable presence, sex as the dark backdrop of mankind are just a few of the challenges his films have accepted. Unlike the lion's share of bourgeois cinema, born in the cities and developed in lounges, Dumont looks directly at the major questions that torment man. Facing an increasingly opaque reality, Dumont offers strong stories without the easy solution of an ending, be it positive or negative. The stories are open because the problems they deal with are open. The characters appear to be dragged by higher powers, they don't think, and they rarely act. Their subservience to reality, destiny and power relationships that rule society is thrown into the viewer's face, and it's up to him to respond. Despite the dominating cold color palette, the colors of the North that gave birth to the director and serves as the setting for most of his stories, Bruno Dumont's films are fiery material. They are as flammable as the reactions they provoke. He sees cinema as a tool with which he removes the hinges of traditional thinking, such as splitting mankind into good and evil. His view of the world is based on the problem-free coexistence of the archaic and the modern. [Locarno Film Festival, 2018]