For decades on end, the concept of the “cinematic gaze” has been psychoanalyzed and questioned. Is the art of filmmaking inherently voyeuristic? How do we, as an audience, form a relationship to the images we see on screen? The first two features of Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, Amer (2009) and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears (2013), act as strange, surrealist insight into the relationship between the female body and film. On a formal level, the French duo’s films clearly evoke the works of Italian giallo masters. Bruno Forzani, however, described their neo-giallo style as “reinterpretation” of the genre's conventions rather than a direct homage to older films. With neon lighting and ASMR-style sound design, Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears draw the viewer into a relatively non-narrative and intensely sensual cinematic experience.
“Lose your face: become capable of loving without remembering, without phantasm and without interpretation, without taking stock. Let there just be fluxes, which sometimes dry up, freeze or overflow, which sometimes combine or diverge.” - Gilles Deleuze
Cattet and Forzani’s work asks to be understood beyond the strict binaries of psychoanalytic theory - i.e. Lacan, Freud, Mulvey. I find the fluid, Deleuzian theory of “becoming” to be a more fitting medium for investigating experimental films. In its most basic form, Deleuze's philosophy of becoming refers to an ever evolving process of change. There are no fixed endpoints to one’s journey of becoming. Deleuze rejected the pursuit of rigid, predetermined identities and norms. Through “becoming,” rather than “being,” the individual is constantly interacting with their environments and creating new possibilities.
The ambiguous and continuous nature of this process is well reflected in the protagonists of Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears. For the purpose of simplicity, I will focus on how Amer depicts various stages of a general “becoming.” The bare-bones narrative of the film follows Ana’s journey from a curious child, to beautiful young woman, to a more introspective and tormented adult. In each of these chapters, Ana is personified by a different actress - allowing the audience to watch her change before their eyes. Young Ana darts around the dark shadows of her family home, under the close watch of a veiled housemaid. The housemaid peers into rooms through peepholes, a classic giallo shot, and frightens Ana with her presence. The veiled woman is far from the eeriest figure; an even more ominous occupant of the house is the corpse of Ana’s grandmother. Ana’s childish curiosity leads her to sneak into the grandmother’s room and try to steal a pocket watch from her hand. This scene acts as a visual parenthetical for Ana’s life: she is now youthful and rosy cheeked, but she will presumably become cold and wrinkled like the corpse. Soon after being snatched from this room by the housemaid, Ana walks in on her parents having sex. Young Ana has been surrounded by what the major aspects of her older life may become - sexuality and impending death. The film then rapidly descends into a series of Mario Bava-esque colorful, dreamlike sequences.
Right when Amer seems to fully embrace the giallo genre, the audience’s aesthetic expectations are subverted by the second chapter’s minimalism. This section is centered around teenage Ana and her mother as they travel into town to complete fairly mundane tasks. Both women don floppy hats, casting shadows across their faces, and walk in sync to a monotonous rhythm. Though there had already been a significant lack of dialogue in the film, its absence seems particularly relevant in this segment. The film’s visual language and movements of the characters speak for themselves. Close-ups on Ana’s mouth and on her dress blowing in the wind project a potential sensual gaze. The characters in the film mirror the gaze of the camera; the men around the town are clearly attracted to Ana’s beauty. She has become a traditional object of attraction. Despite the masculine desire that surrounds Ana, she seems to regard sexuality with a detached curiosity. She denies the attention of the older men but decides to lure a boy into a relatively innocent kiss. Unlike the previous section, there are no vibrant, psychedelic sex scenes. Ana’s process of becoming a sexual individual is not linear. There are also several close-ups on the mother’s body and eyes that parallel that of Ana. In these shots, however, Ana’s mother appears to be self-conscious about her body - she pulls at her dress to cover more exposed skin and her hat hangs low over her face. The contrast of framing between the two women’s bodies reiterates the journey of aging that will likely affect Ana as well. Her beauty is assumed to be temporary.
The final segment features a now adult Ana as she returns to her family’s abandoned home. In the opening, the taxi drive to the villa is tense with sensual energy between the taxi driver and Ana. Though her face is partially obscured by sunglasses, Ana’s body still attracts the attention of the driver. Ana seems to be preoccupied by her thoughts. She experiences her own erotic desires as she sticks her head out of the car window, savoring the wind. The scarf and sunglasses blow off to dramatically reveal Ana’s bare face. In the moments after, the film’s visual language shifts to mirror the increasingly hungry gaze of the driver. A closeup of the seat belt rubbing across Ana’s chest cuts to a closeup on the driver’s wandering, lustful eyes. It’s unclear how much of the sexual tension is real or simply fantasized by Ana. The surrealist atmosphere of the first section returns; now manifested through Ana’s mental instability, rather than her inquisitive nature. As she approaches the villa, Ana removes her accessories and enters the thick foliage as a “clean slate.” We see the leaves drag closely against her skin, connecting her back to her adolescence. Ana’s journey has physically come full circle. Her process of “becoming” is no longer influenced by environments of the exterior world. Now she is alone — or at least she believes she is alone.
Amer’s refusal to define itself and its characters adds to the film’s impact and unique nature. As a viewer, we are given more room to reflect on Ana’s journey by disregarding the restrictions of predetermined identities and endpoints. Throughout Amer’s runtime, Ana is experiencing the process of becoming. By the end, there is no “finished product” or neatly packaged conclusion. Even her status as a being in general is left open ended to some extent. Her hypothetical death, by her own hands or that of an assailant, could be a metaphorical release from sexual binaries and a gender essentialist society. Perhaps, it is not a death but the beginning of another journey.
As a whole, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s creative processes and filmography are parallel to Deleuzian philosophy. Inspired by a variety of music, films, and books, the directing duo stitches together scenes that may wear the “faces” of other art. The end product, however, is always original and undefinable. Cattet and Forzani’s more neo-giallo films (Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears) utilize the iconic visuals of giallo classics to present a layered, meta-textual commentary on the genre’s potential of violent misogyny. Even with its influences, it’s hard to strictly label these films as “neo-giallo” as they diverge from giallo norms in many aspects. I always encourage people to delve into Cattet and Forzani’s work with an open mind- leave your preconceptions behind. In the words of Deleuze, “let there just be fluxes.” Allow the experimental, alluring world to wash over you and captivate your senses.
Once inside the house again, Ana begins to have nightmarish visions that call back to her childhood. She seems to be equally torn between sexual desire and shame, stuck between a version of her mother and her teenage self. Amer fully reemerges itself into the giallo aesthetics and themes. Fantasy and reality blend together as Ana wanders through the empty house, even more consumed by shadows than it was in the first segment. A distinctly Dario Argento inspired cat and mouse chase ensues between the taxi driver, who returns to the house dressed in black, and Ana. The hyper-stylized chaos and unreliable gaze of the film add another layer of mysterious tension. Is the taxi driver truly tracking Ana down to assert his sexual dominance over her? Or is it simply her imagination reacting to sexual repression? Violence on the attacker morphs into violence on herself. By the end of the film, the audience is left with far more questions than answers.
