Opening a new chapter of his “true-false” autobiography (it is in fact fiction based on reality and riddled with excerpts from vignettes of his real life), Joseph Morder recounts the story of one Spring he shared with his plants, his cats and his friend Sacha, but also with Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, and of course with us, the audience, complicit readers of his diary.

Clearly privileging innocence and fun, Morder offers a variety of short poetic moments as sketches, where objects and pets are graced with beauty and humanized in a mere instant: a conversation with a kitten, the intimate “rise and shine” of flowers on his terrace, shots of Paris streets, … Everyday elements are transformed and magnified with a skillful, focused approach, despite the unusual format of this odd camera.
This peculiar approach to the visual image is worth seeing, with a wavy motion across the screen and the raw and unstable contrast in the lighting, more white than it is luminous. Morder’s cell-phone camera creates a barrier between the eye and the world: the latter appears slightly distant, odd and sometimes incomprehensible. The filmmaker sets up this universe using a public event: the 2007 French presidential elections and the “Royal vs. Sarkozy” duel. Television becomes the arena for the fate of the People who, mesmerized by this exceptional media combat, also become a visual and media monster.
But Morder pleads innocent and highlights above all his attempt at creating a modest and amusing simplicity. As he himself claims: he is in the worst position to talk about his own work. It would thus be useless to interpret, or over-interpret, his film. Suffice it to say that Morder is a true poet who strives for image before meaning, and beauty before esthetics. His film is a rare testimony to poetic “snapshots,” is often funny, and always clever.

Alexandre Péron