It is always an interesting experience
to go into a film completely blind, and just let it wash over you
when you have no idea what to expect. But seldom have I ever
experienced that so thoroughly as with the French indie short feature
Le Prince des Cieux (which
translates to Prince of Heaven).
When I discovered the newly-released DVD of the 48-minute film I was
immediately drawn in by the moody and mysterious cover art... yet
since all the text on the box is in French, I was kept totally in the
dark about what to expect. As it turns out, though, that may have
been the perfect way to take in Le Prince des Cieux:
a film that is as spellbinding as it is mysterious and challenging to
decipher. The film is an entirely dialogue-free, music-driven piece
which conjures up a strong sense of mood and atmosphere, but presents
a puzzle of symbolic imagery rather than any sort of concrete
narrative. In its emphasis on music and strong, hypnotic visuals, it
is a bit reminiscent of abstract long-form music films like
Koyaanisqatsi or
Baraka (albeit on a
much smaller-budgeted indie scale), but with one key difference.
Rather than looking outwardly at the world like those films do, it
looks inward, to the soul of its troubled central character, and sees
the world through his eyes.
Le Prince des Cieux
follows a young man living in a run-down part of a city that is filled
with entropy, pollution, and decay. He is an artist, who specializes
in pieces based around disturbing found photographs showing death and
violence; a reflection of his own existential darkness and
self-destructive behavior. As we follow him for the better part of an
hour as he interacts with both the world and his own psyche, we get a
portrait of the angst, disillusionment, and hopelessness of the
modern human condition, and particularly that of the modern
city-dweller. Writer/director David Thouroude creates this through a
series of haunting, emotionally-evocative images, many of which
conjure up religious, occult, and political iconography in a
decidedly sinister way, hinting at the forces principally at work in
our character's tortured psyche. Despite the lack of dialogue,
Thouroude uses this imagery to create a pretty clear sense of the
nature of his protagonist's disillusionment, and does quite an
effective job of getting us inside his state of being. Of course it
is all very abstract, and operates mostly on an emotional level,
requiring the viewer to analyze what they have just seen and come to
their own conclusions about the meaning, but that is exactly what
makes it such an interesting puzzle of a film.
Despite
having clearly been filmed on a low budget, it is very well-shot, and
filled with compelling and sometimes pretty unnerving images. The
music is also quite good, and pairs with the images excellently. The
soundtrack by Billy Dranty is - like the film itself - fairly
abstract, with a lot of minimalist, droning sounds, and electronic
and industrial beats. As with the films like Koyaanisqatsi
that appear to have inspired it, Le Prince des Cieux
depends largely on the power of the soundtrack and images
complimenting and amplifying each other for maximum emotional
effectiveness. It is a difficult type of film to do well, but
Thouroude pulls it off. There are some sections that don't work as
well as others – visual motifs or repetitions that go on too long,
or parts where the low budget hinders the level of visuals that
Thouroude is trying to achieve – but for the most part the film
succeeds quite well.
Le Prince des Cieux isn't
the sort of film that will be for everyone: both its dialogue-free
nature and its challenging level of abstractness may be offputting to
some. But if music-driven, open-to-interpretation mood-pieces are
your cup of tea, you'll really enjoy this short feature. It casts a
hypnotic spell with its mix of haunting images and moody music, and
its themes and visual motifs are strong enough to give the viewer a
lot to think about, even if the film leaves the actual meaning of it
all decidedly open-ended. Check it out if you get the chance.
Score:
-
Christopher S. Jordan
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