While wandering through the rooms of an abandoned building, a young woman questions our relationship to time and space as well as the meaning of existence.
“I’m in a very, very slow suspense, as if there is nothing that moves and nothing that tells me what’s coming next,” Larissa Corriveau, who does not appears only after eight minutes of static shots of empty or disorderly rooms in an abandoned building. With a serious face, an inquisitive look, the actress that Denis Côté directed in Directory of disappeared towns, Social hygiene And A summer like that haunts with its enigmatic presence this perfect hypnotic hybrid between fiction, documentary and essay that is Miss Kenopsia.
To kill time, the guardian, or captive, of the place indulges in reflections on our relationship to time and space, on the urgency of living and on the meaning of existence. Visiting him is an unknown person (Evelyne de la Chenelière, who signs the magnificent ten-minute monologue on Eternity), the concierge (Olivier Aubin, with whom Larissa Corriveau performs an astonishing motionless pas de deux on the haunting song Possessed by Potochkin) and the steward (Hinde Rabbaj).
With the precise framing and almost subliminal camera movements of cinematographer Vincent Biron, as well as the rich sound design of Terence Chotard, Miss Kenopsia immediately exerts a fascination tinged with anguish. Added halfway through are 16 mm projections by visual artist Philippe Léonard, which help not only to maintain the feeling of disturbing strangeness that each image provokes, but also to give the whole thing a fantastic, dreamlike dimension.
Since the start of his prolific career, Denis Côté, a former film critic nourished by horror films, has made films for discerning film buffs. Understanding for those who are not afraid of being jostled by proposals that are the opposite of formatted and comforting productions. If he seemed to care nothing about the spectators with his first short films, the director has since demonstrated a desire to invite them to have fun with him in his formal explorations.
His new offering, Miss Kenopsia, filmed for the modest sum of $10,000 in two monasteries, one in Saint-Hyacinthe, the other in Pierrefonds, and in the former Royal Victoria hospital, is a very good example. Evoking the novel by Kevin Lambert May your joy remain, a reflection on our relationship to work, this work, which marks the end of a cycle in Denis Côté’s career, flirts with genre, lightness and humor. Which does not prevent it from being overcome by sincere emotion and real depth.
Indoors
Drama
Miss Kenopsia
Denis Cote
Larissa Corriveau, Evelyne De la Chenelière, Olivier Aubin
1:20 a.m.