Ντοκιμαντέρ «Ακαδημία Πλάτωνος»

Offscreen: Your first film, Moment of Impact, is a documentary about tragic events with your Father. Did the camera, in some ways, mediate your relationship or experience with your family?

Julia Loktev: Moment of Impact was very much a film about a camera; about the possibility – or impossibility – of bring a camera into this very hermetic environment. And so the camera is almost a character in the film, and I was very conscious about that, and about highlighting moments. There’s one point in the film where my Mother actually taps on the lens. I didn’t want to make films with an invisible camera. But the camera takes on different roles in that film. Sometimes, it sort of backs away and has the illusion of being invisible, but then it becomes very active and intrusive at other points. In some ways I think that Day Night Day Night has a similar role of the camera. Sometimes you’re very aware of the presence of the camera. I tend to use the camera very… sometimes like a microscope, and sometimes like a weapon, I think. I shot Moment of Impact myself – and there are a couple of shots in Day Night Day Night that I operated, for different reasons. Where they had to focus on different things. And Benoît [Debie, who notably helmed the camera on Irréversible (2002)], my cinematographer said: “You know how you want this to go, you know what you want to see, why don’t you take it”? So they put the easy-rig on me and I operated. There’s another good shot when she’s in the bathroom like, looking. You can tell when I’m operating because the camera is slightly breathing – moving closer and further from the subject – it’s almost like pawing the subject a little bit. I can tell, there’s a slight difference. It moves in and out slightly like I want to just pet the subject with the camera.

Offscreen: I was thinking about that moment in the bathroom. There are moments like that, where it’s happening in real time, real space. We have to wait along with her; we’re trapped in there with her.

Julia Loktev: And you have to feel it. It was too difficult, and we were all trapped in a stall, and it was too difficult for me to tell Benoît, and he was very cool about that, actually. Some D.P.’s are very possessive but he was very much… it was his idea. He was like: It’s about a feeling; it’s about getting this thing onscreen how ever. But I do think it’s funny that I see this kind of movement, slightly stroking. That would be me. It’s not intentional; I think I do it totally subconsciously. But it’s definitely there in Moment of Impact.

Η σκηνοθέτιδα Julia Loktev

Diduck, R.,2006, Good Day and Good Night: A Conversation with Filmmaker Julia Loktev, Offscreen, Volume 10, Issue 11, διαθέσιμο online : http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/phile/essays/good_day/