In this intense contemplation of the singer’s art, Pedro Costa films Jeanne Balibar painstakingly rehearsing and recording. “A startling and lucid lesson in filming musical performance and a cinephilic marvel.” — New Yorker
Sublime... an exquisite pleasure. As the title says, don't change anything.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2010
Ne change rien 2009
The Portuguese director Pedro Costa has filmed his friend, the French actress and singer Jeanne Balibar, hard at work, painstakingly, repeatedly rehearsing and recording a handful of torch songs, and withstanding some severe tutelage in the performance of an Offenbach piece. Costa, who topped many cinephiles’ recent best-of-decade lists, is best known for a series of films which honour the semi-destitute inhabitants of a derelict Lisbon housing estate. (The Film Society is hoping to bring the films to New Zealand at last in a retrospective in 2011.) Here he applies his stark, real-time aesthetic to conjure an intense contemplation of a singer’s dogged, passionate dedication to becoming one with the song. — BG
“His sensual, velvety, high-contrast black-and-white images capture the exertions and exultations of music-making… Both a startling and lucid lesson in filming musical performance and a cinephilic marvel.” — Richard Brody, New Yorker