Yannick Bellon: Quelque part quelqu'un

Yannick Bellon was not a familiar name to me before my sister started talking about one of her films, Quelque part quelqu'un (1972), an experimental film with hints of traditional narrative. The film revolves around a bunch of people in Paris. The different segments of the film are seemingly disconnected - we are not presented with a grand scene where all threads come together. What sets her film apart from other films is the eerie way in which music, the movements of the camera, and usage of landscape together create a sense of dread. My associations drift towards film noir, or horror movies. But there's no crime, no murderer, no gore. So, what is it that I experience as scary? In one scene, an elderly woman talks to a man at a train station. She asks the man about a particular adress. The man looks at the woman's map, and takes her to the metro. A few scenes onward: the woman seems to have reached her destination, but she has ended up in the middle of a bustling demonstration; young people carry placards, "France, get out of Chad". At the surface, there's nothing special going on here, nothing remarkable. But in the film, these small events are transformed into something exceptional. In every scene, I get a feeling that almost anything could happen, but I am not offered any ideas about what could happen next. I ponder the open character of our everyday life - however mundane, drab and boring - and in this film, everyday life is overwhelming and scary - but still very familiar. There's a lot of bustling crowds and urban scenery. In one particularly poignant scene, one of the protagonists makes his way through the crowd at the stock market. The noise, the deals, the big, evocative screen - anything could happen, but life is bound to remain the same. Most of the the conversations in the films are very plain, very ordinary. At some point, I start to think about the apocalyptic themes of Derek Jarman and early movies by Jim Jarmusch, with whom Bellon shares the fondness for urban desolation. This is a rare film in that it creates a world of its own.

I am impressed with the crew on Finnish public service TV for having the stamina to broadcast such a rare and unknown film. I trawled the internet for reviews, but found none (in English). The only thing I know about the director is that she is best known for a film about rape. She is also considered a feminist director.