Sometimes the detour is more important than the road one has taken. It is thus, by pure chance, that the protagonist arrives at Camping du Lac, a campsite in the woods near a wild and mysterious lake in Brittany: the idea is to stay there a few nights, just enough time to fix her broken-down car, but something about that small community attracts her and convinces her to stay. Will it be the lonely country singer with a hazy past, or the jolly woman who swims naked in the lake every night? The enchanted childhood of blond Bobby or the passion for plant knowledge shared by the villagers? Or the discovery of the story of Saint Corentin, a kind of transalpine Francis of Assisi, a hermit who lived in complete harmony with nature by making a pact with a miraculous fish - and it is that very fish that is said to have transformed into a gigantic creature, capable of appearing to some visitors. Is it just a legend or is there some truth to it? wonders Éléonore Saintagnan, the director and protagonist of this film on the borderline between fiction and documentary.
Brought up in an artistic context, which has given rise to an interesting constellation of exhibitions and installations related to the film, Saintagnan - already a Vision du Réel winner with her short film Une fille de Ouessant (2018) - confidently explores the frontiers of cinema, casually creating a film that knows how to transform from an observational documentary to a costume film, achieving fantastic and surreal touches. Following in the footsteps of Luc Moullet and his free cinema, the filmmaker achieves the grace of a timely and ironic tale that knows how to turn into a Zen fable about the complex relationship between man and nature. The voiceover disappears, giving way to a difficult realization that takes place in the silence of a lake that recedes its waters to confront us with the mystery of the natural world.
Daniela Persico
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