Le Vent, les hommes
Jacques Deschamps
1995 - 62 min - Betacam SP - Couleur - France

"Le vent pour le monde, le soufflet pour l'homme, manifestent l'expansion des choses infinies". Gaston Bachelard.
In the beginning was the wind. The original myth of the "Moken", South-East Asian nomadic sailors, tells how, after the chaos, the female ancestors were made pregnant by the winds. From this the first original couple was born, and later humanity. For the Bambara in Mali, the "nema", a manifestation of divine mercy, fed men. The "nema" appeared in the form of a cool wind, and in the swirling the Bambara hear the initial word, the word, this emission of wind.
The dialogue of men with the wind is the story of a straw obstinately determined to speak familiarly with the absolute force.
Yet, "although it is violent, the wind is never nasty. It is too great to be interested in man". For the sailor, Eugène Riguidel, accustomed to the rough treatment of all the seas in the world, we have to get to know the wind, slip into its intimacy to use it best. But always with respect, nay superstition.