After Oh La Pauline (2015), in 2023, Emile Brisavoine presents to the public yet another intimate documentary that draws us into her life, her past and her wounds, and the light that came out of it.
If the 8-years-ago movie which premiered at Cannes was a delicate portrait of her half-sister, the renowned French documentarist now delves again into the realm of her family and specifically into her own mother. Keeping Mum astonishes Karlovy Vary Film Festival with the director’s passionate gaze over Maude -now in her 60s- as it builds a feminist, multifaceted mosaic of an explosive woman, who is full of contradictions and is constantly dwelling between life and death; and between love and the very denial of it. In a film that springs from images of the Space combined with those of a fetus, and then a child, and then the mother-protagonist, motherhood, as the very source of living, is connected to the Universe in a broad way. Thus, coming across as a statement of intent:
“If we want to find out our place in the universe, we just have to look up into the distance, far off, towards the kingdom of extra-terrestrial galaxies, we have to go back in time, millions or even billions of years to finally reach a place where matter, space and time are compressed and compacted into an infinitely small place”.
Thus, the maternal womb and the galactic environment are placed on the same conceptual level, filling the former with an almost religious value and anchoring the latter to an earthly dimension. Everything is confusing, just as the behaviours, the reasons for them, the feelings that they come from and that they produced: “people hurt you and you hurt people. How can we stop this shit?”. Therefore, not only is Keeping Mum a quest over the director’s childhood, without ever being a trial to an erratic and confusing mother figure, but also it is an investigation over the reasons behind every attitude and even the most confusing and seemingly unexplainable choices.
While uncovering bleeding wounds, the camera also looks at them in a compassionate light: they were beyond everyone’s control, arising directly from another sorrowful past almost like a cause-effect. The film takes the tone of a forgiving love letter, slowly building a wise reflection over each one’s pain and where it comes from.
Suffering brings other sufferings and childhood trauma brings other childhood traumas; so how can this circle be stopped when everyone is a grownup? When your broken inner child hijacks the plane of your life and takes control over it, the only thing you can do is to repair them, to talk to them. An urgency that gets all the way more searing as you become a parent yourself:
“Ever since my son was born, I have been having nightmares about my mother”, so the director states at the beginning of the film, foretelling the core of the investigation that we will be eyewitness to and is brought forth through today’s footage as well as yesterday’s material. Old pictures, home movies, personal diaries read by the voice of Emile herself merge with the present-day filming of her family and mostly of Maude over the past few years, since she took another step-in parenthood with the birth of her grandchildren.
The result is a confused yet enlightening work of art; enlightening because of being confused, as a perfect example of form following the content. In fact, how could one be clear, precise and tidy when infiltrating in the tangled balls of memories, in the mazes of our [collective] brain and in the contradictions of distant feelings that are extinguished but still burn, just like ashes.
In a way, Keeping Mum is an ode for everyone that is called to face the ghosts of their “once upon a time”, and to come to terms with what they have been trying to avoid. Life is a complicated affair, love bonds are fundamental and yet so difficult to handle, and that’s where the camera comes into action and becomes like a therapist: silent yet inquiring, present yet respectful, and when the truth comes to the surface on its own, it is simply there to record it and to pass it along.
In fact, by questioning and donating her story, Brisavoine is making a statement about the power of community, declaring how sharing is almost a moral duty between humans, a duty that is perfectly embodied in art, as there is nothing more noble and courageous than feeding pieces of yourself to others so that each can learn something.
In this case, learn to look inside each other and by doing so, perhaps to be able to forgive.
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