as of 08 August 2023: Gimeno’s latest film, L’Amertume, is available to watch here.
Love, death and the sea endure as intimate reminders of the cyclical nature of a lifetime. To love, to grieve, and our (inevitable) return to the sea sits at the crux of our shared existence. Theodore Gimeno’s latest film, L’Amertume (or otherwise Bitterness) is an attentive, yet fluid exploration of non-linear time, mortality, and the past as double absence: something that was never there, yet gone altogether.
While Gimeno’s devotion to dialogue throughout the feature-length is particular, deference is awarded to his use of sustained panoramic shots and the eerie––haunting, even––musical score. Sound, as a medium, must be taken seriously. Sound often does what the spoken word cannot: it actively threads together; it illuminates various (predisposed) possibilities. Reminiscent of Brandon LaBelle’s assertion that “sound deliver(s) powerful energies to interfere” (LaBelle, 2018: 127), composer Edward McAllister carefully, or perhaps even viscerally, brings Gimeno’s ruminations to life in an altogether fantastical way. It is precisely through the symbiotic relationship of fragmented dialogue and McAllister’s score that Gimeno moves beyond generic boundaries of narrativization in microcinema.
The characters in L'Amertume are always navigating either to, or from the sea; moving downstream or climbing higher (…to escape from?). Gimeno’s artistic choice to have his characters in movement with water, coupled with an (almost) hyper fixation on the sea itself, is tantalising. This particularity though, is not lost on viewers, insofar as it serves as a relational motif. Or, as Dionne Brand reminds, “water is another country.” (Brand, 2012: 56) The sea, and any body of water, is a collection of stories; a living archive. The choice to visually posit a story of (fragmented) memory, mortality and the past in direct relation to the sea is chilling; eerie, while equally honest.
The introduction of Death (portrayed by Helena Streimann) in the third chapter is enigmatic, bordering hypnotic. When Death makes an effort to repeat that they recognise Simon (portrayed by Antoine Estager), perhaps this is a simple aide-mémoire that death (as phenomenon) is learning backwards. I’ve often found the human tendency to call death sleep admirable––warm, even. Gimeno imaginatively personifies death as being gentle; graceful. The outstretched hand. Intimate conversation. Someone to wander with, rather than fear. To what extent we find ourselves (as an audience) in Simon’s relation to death is a question Gimeno keeps open for us.
Working in a manner akin to Andrei Tarkovsky is incredibly challenging. Yet, Gimeno’s stylistic choices, coupled with a team of collaborators who each harbour a love for microcinema, hold steadfast and shine through. L’Amertume reminds that film itself does not amplify life, but rather life is an understatement, and film breathes life (into us) as it should be experienced. Gimeno’s latest work is a warm souvenir: art, in any form, would not be important if life were not important. And life, (read: our relation to death, love and the sea) is important.
L’Amertume premiered on 7 July 2023 at Cinéma L’Archipel in Paris, France, and will be available for streaming in August 2023. Keep up to date with all of Gimeno’s wonderful work via his website.