happiness...

Chronique d'un été directed by Jean Rouch
The second film I watched (see the post welcome to treichville)  from this director, which I borrowed from the Alliance Française in Cape town.
They have one of the most amazing films collection there, I am loving it.

For those who might not have the possibility to watch movies by this fabulous director, here is a snippet from Chroniques d'un été:

The movie opens with a dialogue between Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin about the possibilities offered by cinema-verité and whether the presence of the camera doesn't distort the true behavior of the people they film. Follows a scene where they ask people in the street of Paris whether they are happy or not, the tone is light. Eventually the camera leaves the street to get to the core of the debate, and concentrates on a couple of people that we will then follow throughout the movie. The intensity of the characters sublimates the simple frame of the film. The testimonial are touching sometimes very poignant, but what makes it so vibrant is that the concerns are similar to today's concerns in many ways: Love, racism, wars, education, work, finding a place in society, the possibility, the liberty to better yourself, to better your condition as a human being. The conscience of a human condition similar around the world brought by the socialist ideals had spread consequently since the beginning of 21st century, the movements for independence resulting in the end of the colonial empires bringing these social beliefs closer to reality.

But what about today?

"In all of us brought up in a western democracy, wrote Doris Lessing, there is this built-in belief that freedom and liberty will strenghten, will survive pressures, and the belief seems to survive any evidence against it."

The world reeks middle age and we are pushed to hold on to old beliefs, victim of groups in their last effort to resist, too scared to accept the unavoidable changes that today's societies are submited to. 

I lived most of my life in Europe, French, strongly attached to my country I revendicate my heritage, but I refuse to accept that same heritage as immutable,  and want to move into the future by embrassing the paradigm of multiculturalism.

The idea is not the acceptance of a pluri-monoculturalism but of true multiculturalism. 

"vivre ensemble".