Le paradis

With a detached gaze, the 83-year-old French filmmaker Cavalier (Thérèse, René, Le filmeur) investigates his direct surroundings: his garden, his house, the wealth of stories in his own head. He associatively links minor events in and around the house with dreams, memories and thoughts. Using random trinkets, pieces of toys or the harvest of the garden, he stages personal versions of biblical and classical stories.
At the start of the film, a peacock chick dies. The efforts to keep alive memories of his short existence form a recurrent motif. The improvised memorial to the bird becomes a parallel for the film itself: a testimony compiled of objets trouvés. The disarming simplicity of the film lies in the modesty of the means that Cavalier uses to recreate his inner world in front of the camera.