La vertige de la page blanche

Conceived within the framework of a course on directing actors at CIFAS in Belgium, Le vertige de la page blanche is an astonishing adventure – as much for the singularity of its process of creation, as for the quality of its execution. It is a pure piece of cinematic happiness – an extravagant construction in which mise en abîme and surrealist delirium are given form in a profusion of absurd, amusing and baffling scenes. Conjuring with the scientific mastery of one who walks on a tightrope poised over an abyss, Ruiz constructs the film on this suspended equilibrium between dream and reality, guiding us imperceptibly right along a dangerous frontier separating life from death. The project takes as its pretext what happens when we have to make a judgment (on a film, a terrorist _ ). A cinema of mysteries, of the secret spaces that reveal the fragility of our certainties, Le vertige escapes the heaviness of esoteric philosophy by virtue of a caustic humour where burlesque and poetry go arm in arm. Within an astonishing unity of performance, each actor evolves in this vertiginous whirl with the lightness of clouds and the force of tides – giving to this blank page a density which speaks volumes about lived experience, inviting us to play at life and triumphantly thumb our noses at death.Philippe Simon