Père Lachaise Cemetery/Le cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris becomes the nexus for Heddy Honigmann's superb documentary Forever (2006), drawing together for communion the living and the dead.
Deep emotional connections abound in this film. There are people tending to specific graves and sections, watering plants and cleaning burial sites. There are international visitations, people paying respects to a beloved someone, usually a poet, artist, writer or musician of some kind. We see the graves of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret and we also see three blind people (at home) listening raptly to Simone Signoret in Les Diaboliques (1955).
People from France, Spain, Korea, Japan, Iran and elsewhere speak about lost loved ones, or about Marcel Proust, Apollinaire, Ingres, Chopin, Jim Morrison (tangentially), Oscar Wilde, Modigliani, Sadegh Hedayat and others.
It would be hard to watch this film and not come away at least a little more thoughtful about life, death, art and spirit, about where we've been and where we're going, and perhaps more thankful for artists and dreamers.
For more, please see: http://www.heddy-honigmann.nl/hhonigmann/films/forever/index.php
Today's Rune: Wholeness.
3 comments:
Most of us could use a little more thoughtfulness, and if a movie helps with that, more power to it.
Getting over a near-death hospital experience recently,I found your blog on Heddy Honigmann's documentary, 'Forever' very thought-provoking...and, to quote Clint Eastwood, already a legend in my own head. :)
Erik, this one sounds great. I'm sure we all can identify with talk of morality.
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