La Mounine ou note après coup sur un ciel de Provence
Aline Horisberger
1997 - 81 min - 16 mm - Couleur - Suisse, France

Francis Ponge's descriptions of the skies of Provence are memorable because of the way he portrayed their special beauty and called on them as witnesses to this reflections on the act of literary creation itself. Aline Horisberger decided to integrate Ponge's "La Mounine ou note après coup sur un ciel de Provence", written in 1941, within a special cinematographic approach.
Off-screen, the narrator's voice recites a poem by Ponge against images of prosaic, everyday landscapes. The text echoes the images, invests them, confers upon them an imaginary dimension, and suggests that the sky has an unfathomable and sometimes brutal depth.
But Provence is alive, industrious. Aline Horisberger films miners, lavender distillers, old age pensioners, who by successive strokes compose the features of communities. She also adds a spectacular touch by having them read excerpts from Ponge's works, which are thus literally embodied by the people who provide him with the accents and the rhythm of their Provençale culture. The filmmaker weaves these different elements together as though on a quest.