Jean Reverzy, tentative de lecture 1989

Directed by André S. Labarthe

The camera scans the typography of a book while the voice launches into a first attempt at reading: "Chapter one... The Passage..."; The camera freezes on the word Polynesia. In an abandoned waiting room, an ageless man keeps coughing. He is waiting. The voice resumes its attempt to read, but is interrupted by that of the witness (the writer Charles Juliet), who recounts his meetings with Jean Reverzy. The coughing man ventures into the apartment; Polynesia emerges from a television. At the origin of this series of essays, there is the desire to invite European writers of the 20th century to be read today. What they have in common is having lived and written in a Europe shaken by crises, wars and revolutions. Their works and their lives bear witness to this. Each film has the character of a very personal preface and expresses the pleasure of discovering a work.