Alain Cavalier in the documentary by Jean-Pierre Limosin: ‘I well remember the first image that took my breath away. I was five years old. In the courtyard of a farm I saw the face of a woman, and for a fraction of a second, I changed into a kind of burning torch. I experienced that feeling that your face is ablaze again several years later when I went to the cinema.’ This primeval image of the burning face is characteristic of Cavalier’s cinema, the central theme of which is the human face. In this documentary Cavalier provides us with a phenomenology of the human face. In a more concrete sense, Cavalier describes his problems, discretion and inhibitions when filming female faces. His investigation of the sometimes seductive and sometimes tyrannical face is linked to an almost religious sobriety. This same approach dominates his construction of spaces; realistic settings with monochrome backgrounds.
