This revealing portrait examines the creative process of filmmaking through the long-time collaboration between Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Costa carefully observes the pair re-editing the third version of their feature Sicilia! (1999), documenting the dialectic, argumentative mode the filmmakers use to reach decisions about each cut. Costa has described the film as his first comedy as well as his first love story.

 

In 6 Bagatelles (6 Bagatelas) (2001), Costa takes unused scenes of Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? and edits them into a new context.

 

‘Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? reinvents the idea and the practice of portraiture, or more generally of the homage. Through intelligence and attention, it avoids maudlin hagiography. Nobody has put in sharper relief, made more tangible the dedication to clarity, the conviction that the image is appearance and the conviction that the form is the material mediation of an idea, which are at the core of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. In short, nobody has ever given us a clearer view of the classicism they claimed for themselves, and nobody has made clearer the legitimacy of that claim. Nobody has put in sharper relief the politics of such an affirmation: the insistence on preservation (of nature and culture) as the essential component of revolution.’

 

Programme:

 

Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (Oû gît votre sourire enfoui?), Dir. Pedro Costa, Portugal/France, 2001, 104 min., French with English subtitles

 

6 Bagatelles (6 Bagatelas), Dir. Pedro Costa, 2001, Portugal/France, 18 min., French with English subtitles

With the kind support of Camões – Institute of Co-operation and Language, I.P