Thursday 4 July 2013

Film: The Tightrope of Life - featuring Bernard Crettaz




Violette Daneau has made a film about death called the Tightrope of Life. This features an interview with Bernard Crettaz, whose Cafe Mortels inspired Death Cafe. The premiere of this was in Montreal and was attended by Bernard Crettaz who held a Cafe Mortel afterwards.

The website for the Tightrope of Life is: http://lamort-lefilm.com/en/

The Tightrope of Life - Short synopsis

A road movie for the soul, The Tightrope of Life, is a documentary feature film that stems from the childhood prayers of the director who, at age seven, asks God to “let me live till I’m 20.” Now 59, Violette Daneau explores mortality through a series of encounters with people confronted by death either through their professional activities or their state of health. She also delves into traditions and rituals surrounding this ultimate taboo. Surprisingly, her quest puts her whole life into perspective.

Filmed in Quebec, Switzerland, Spain and the United States, this personal journey is a dynamic, courageous and sometimes troubling trek through the human cycle: from birth, to life, to death.

Quote from interview with Bernard Crettaz in the film

“After each Mortal Cafe, I go home, as Claudel would’ve said, the body heavy and I say to myself: Bernard, did you contribute today to a fuller expression of the consoling complaint. That’s fine. But did we take one step closer to the question of death’s nonsense? Death, that is nonsense. We take it to the most positive sense. That is, that all our certainties are lifted, shattered. Actually, There are only questions left. That’s what death is useful for. So, if we remove that – and I sometimes believe that we Westerners avoid this fundamental question – if we do that, we are the gravediggers of death and we are unworthy of her.” Bernard Crettaz

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