In 1978, the French American painter and writer Hugues De Montalembert, a wealthy cosmopolitan in the prime of life, was attacked in his home by two men looking for money. They threw alkali in his eyes making him blind. De Montalembert’s brain continued to make images. ‘Vision is a creation, not a perception,’ as he says. After a difficult period of anger and despair about his fate, about the reactions of well-meaning acquaintances, about the physical pain, the painter managed to take his own life back into his own hands. Usually, the composer of a film soundtrack only sets to work once the editing is more or less finished. In his film about De Montalembert, Gary Tarn had good reasons to work the other way around. Tarn himself started his career as a composer who experimented widely with pieces for spoken text and orchestra. He therefore started by recording the voice of De Montalembert, who tells his moving and, at first sight, even melodramatic life story. Tarn made a soundtrack to accompany this and only edited the pictures afterwards. Beautiful images such as those De Montalembert (who never appears on screen) could have on his retina, the world as he could see it. Black Sun, a sensual, experimental travelogue and sad meditation about identity, fate and perception in one, gives the viewer’s own thoughts plenty of room. The film echoes, as they say. (GT)
