DOKU.ARTS
Zeughauskino Berlin
06.–23.10.2016

Black Sun

“...This is the first time I have ever written in the dark ... not knowing whether I am indeed forming letters.” – Diderot

One evening in 1978, French painter Hugues de Montalembert enters his New York flat and finds himself face-to-face with two burglars. A fight ensues, during which one of the men throws solvent in de Montalembert's face. Though the painter's screams drive the burglars away, the fluid's effect is immediate. De Montalembert feels his eyesight waning; the next morning he is blind. The artist faces this dramatic situation with incredible willpower and admirable courage. Two years later he travels alone to Bali, the first of many trips. And he begins to write, by hand, not knowing whether the pen leaves traces upon the paper.

Black Sun tells this unusual story. The film unfolds like a journey of discovery: what happens when a painter goes blind? De Montalembert's visually imprinted brain responds to the darkness with a wealth of images, as if a secret power newly arranges the possibilities of his vision. Filmmaker Gary Tarn adds his own version of what's happening to de Montalembert's poetically narrative voice. In a cinematic tour de force, an audiovisual landscape is created in which dreamlike and everyday pictures stand as equivalent options alongside the artist's real memories and imaginations. In doing so, this visually intriguing essay film confirms de Montalembert's words: “A painter sees beyond seeing... He creates vision.”

(ab)