escautville is a production and distribution platform for audiovisual arts

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Ten students sit in a classroom with their teacher. They are receiving lessons in Mathematics, Geography, Dutch and French. The teacher is tyrannical. Several students are subject to her tirades. Some are antagonizers, while others are silent but dangerous.

 

An obsessive fascination of the morphology of depression increasingly became a recurring theme in the cinematic work of Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys. Close-ups of desperate, diabolical, catatonic heads are suspended to the point of inducing a trance. Through this stillness, the actors become sculptures in the film.

 

Although their role is guided by a narrative, in this case a school and the interpersonal relationships that play out within that framework, it is the internal, the world of their spirit, that becomes visible when one observes their glances and expressions long enough.

 

Their actions are not so much propelled by a written script, but rather through visual tension. This can range from a trembling upper lip to a specific glance that leads to a character taking a specific action.

Over the years, the artists translated this hushed effect into the creation of a number of dolls and sculptures that sometimes appeared as characters in our films.

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