Almayer’s Folly
Directed By:
Chantal Akerman
Written By:
Akerman, based on the novel by Joseph Conrad
Starring:
Stanislas Merhar, Aurora Marion, Mar Barbe, Zac Andrianasolo, Sakhna Oum, and Solida
Chan.
Director of Photography: Raymond Fromont, Editor: Claire
Atheron
The key moment in Almayer’s Folly is one of luminescent beauty, though oddly without any emotion. Set in the Cambodian jungle, our protagonist Almayer watches as a boat, lavished in bright colors floats across a black river toward his dock. Writer and director Chantal Akerman immediately distances this moment from any tension by revealing in a third person voice over the reason for their visit, as well as the outcome, none of which we see. Akerman thus allows the camera to view the moment in its tranquility.
Since
her debut feature Jeanne Dielman
became the most widely cited and critically acclaimed film by a female director
ever made, Akerman has often dipped into very different works, often changing and
revising style over the years. But she has always been a formalist filmmaker
with an assured vision, which comes across in the intellectually demanding Almayer’s Folly, a new work loosely
based on the Joseph Conrad novel exploring post-colonial tensions in Southeast
Asia. It’s an allegorical story between a father and a daughter and between
whiteness and blackness, one that slowly and rigorously examines a world in
which the physical borders between both spaces and individuals are still quite
intact.
