Abstract
Shot entirely in the desert, La Cicatrice intérieure (1972), Philippe Garrel’s seventh film, is to be experienced as a piece of aesthetic artistry, both visually and musically. The first of his underground period—plotless, dream-like, gliding on the sound of harmonium and chants—Garrel invites viewers to watch it without seeking any particular meaning; rather, one should simply take pleasure in contemplating the screened desert, as one would a painting, indulging in peaceful reverie. The film is conceived as a diptych of contrasting stark landscapes: scorching heat, blinding light, barren rocks, arid soil on the one hand; ice fields, somber twilights, volcanic bleakness, dark waters on the other. Lost in such desolate vastness, “three fundamental bodies”—man, woman, child—roam aimlessly these unsearchable immensities. In the first half of the film, they appear to dissolve into ultimate nothingness; in the second—same, other?—they hint at potential renascence; in both, immersed in a “time before time,” they engage in some sort of arcane, hypnotic, primitive voyage. Almighty, majestic, unyielding, the desert tenders them that “inhuman intelligence” essential to any attempt at developing uncharted paths to yet unimagined, utopian, harmonious cultures.
Published Version
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