Empty Quarter (Une Femme en Afrique) de Raymond Depardon : l’image d’une voix off

• Main Author: Cyril Laverger
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Récits Cultures Et Sociétés 2011-08-01
• Series: Cahiers de Narratologie
• Subjects: Depardon Raymond; point de vue subjectif; regard-caméra; voix-in; voix-off
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/narratologie/6310

For his first fiction feature, Raymond Depardon chooses a radical device to direct the passionate love of a man for a woman: never see him never hear him; he is only present thanks to his voice-over and the camera-glances of this woman. Kind of a shape of a subjective point of view is anchored in the first sequences. Yet, despite a hand-held shot, sound and visual clues strangely disturb this subjective point of view; an unexpected objective internal sound linked to the female character and the questions asked to the voice-over-character remain unanswered. The audience is imperceptibly led to ask itself questions on the status of this voice-over: varying time-scale, « improbable dialogue » between voice-over and voice-in, mere existence of this voice over character... In Empty Quarter, the voice-over becomes a real character telling a story which is both lived and fantasized.