the explorer
 

PostED ON 15.10.2024

Director of a sensitive oeuvre, Yannick Bellon would have turned 100 this year. 

© Les Films de L'Equinoxe

Short films, documentaries, fiction for television, films... Yannick Bellon's work is worth rediscovering. Born in 1924, she first gained notoriety for her documentary short, Goémons (1948). There were virtually no women filmmakers at the time; Agnès Varda would release her first feature in 1955. It took strength of personality to break into the very male-dominated world of French cinema. It was therefore hardly surprising to find Bellon filming another woman who was known for resisting convention, the writer Colette, in 1952.

Throughout her life, Bellon alternated between documentary and fiction, reality and illusion, with one common denominator: the city and its noises. Anatomy of Los Angeles (1969) captures the sound of a city so gigantic, that  it could ironically be described as voiceless. “A flat, blue city, Los Angeles... a city splintered into multiple suburbs that ignore each other...” one hears in this poetic yet realistic film, which comprehends everything about this city, unique in the world. 

Anatomy of Los Angeles (1969) © DR

An entrepreneur, Bellon didn't wait for anyone to pave the way for her. In 1972, she took the initiative to found Les Films de l'Equinoxe in order to produce her own material. In twenty years, no matter the cost, the filmmaker invented a body of work where the intimate interprets our society with poetry and great simplicity, at times necessarily brutal, particularly in her choice of titles: Never Again, Violated Love, Naked Love, Children of Disorder...

Bellon's cinema was delicate and tinged with impressionism. The director touched on all the major social issues of the day: rape, drugs, loneliness, misogyny, illness and homosexuality (which was non-existent in the cinema at the time). Jean’s Wife tells the story of separation – a woman in her forties is left by her husband of eighteen years, but thanks to her son (Hippolyte Girardot, a marvellously intelligent young man) and a few remarkable women, Jean's wife, hovering around her (now) oversized bed with no idea what to do, manages to overcome her despair and claim her independence to the fullest. This brings to mind a word that runs through all of Yannick Bellon's work: Emancipation.

Jean’s Wife (1974) © Les Films de L'Equinoxe

Virginie Apiou

Screenings:

Jean’s Wife by Yannick Bellon (La femme de Jean, 1974, 1h44)
Lumière Terreaux Mon 14 8:30pm | Institut Lumière (Hangar) Wed 15 9am

Anatomy of Los Angeles by Yannick Bellon (Anatomie de Los Angeles, Documentary, 1969, 37min, VFSTA)
Lumière Terreaux Mon 14 8:30pm