Empire of the Senses. The winner of the short film prize by Salomé de Souza is immediately compelling due to its premise of two young teenagers who fall in love, but who are also distant cousins. In spite of that, Ariel Schweitzer argues the strength of Clamor lies in its ability to seamlessly transition from the couple’s intimacy to a portrait of their extended family, with invasive nuances omnipresent.
Already the winner of the Best European Film award at the Oberhausen Film Festival, Clamor has also won the Grand Prize in the international competition at the Drama Festival in Greece, as well as the Fipresci Prize at the same festival. Subjectively speaking, it is one of the major revelations in French cinema in recent years.
Directed by young French filmmaker Salomé Da Souza (born in 1995), Clamor (French title: Boucan) is a sensitive portrait of a family, of a community, and also of a region – the Southeast of France, specifically the Gard department. Born in Nimes, Da Souza spent her childhood in this region, which she left at the age of 18 in order to study theatre in Paris, before transitioning to cinema with the help of the FEMIS Residence. There, she directed her first short film, Rabinar (2020), also set in her birthplace, a work inspired by her own biography and where she plays the main role.
Johannes and Gabin, two young teenagers, fall in love. But the problem is that they are distant cousins, part of a large family from the Gard who refuse to accept this forbidden relationship. From the first signs of their passion, suggestive glances follow the couple wherever they go, and discontent is expressed, first through small gestures, then through words. Johannes’ older sister (played by the director), the first to notice this born desire inside the family, repeatedly warns Johannes. But the passion, the physical attraction, is too strong, and the young couple is incapable of resisting it.
The strength of Clamor lies down in its ability to seamlessly transition from the couple’s intimacy, with a detailed yet rough description of their physical attraction, to the portrait of the larger group – this extended family, which is both warm and supportive, yet where everyone seems to invade each other’s privacy, monitoring each other to the point of suffocation. Beyond this family, which functions like a tribe, the film also portrays an entire popular community in the region, with its traditions and rituals.
Clamor, a fiction film, is marked by a documentary quality, partly due to the fact that many of the actors are non-professionals, basically playing themselves, accurately reproducing the region’s particular accent and slang (the Southern French accent of the Gard region, enriched by some expression in the Occitan language). Several scenes are entirely documentary, such as the bulls festival (The Votive, a typical regional celebration taking place usually during the summer), shot in the streets of a village near Nimes, or the open-air techno party, during which the protagonists blend into the crowd, and the minimal plot integrates perfectly with the scenes of collective joy and dancing. In the midst of the festivities, Gérard Blanc’s song “Une autre histoire” (Another story) beautifully and sensually conveys the pain of this fiery and impossible passion.
In the heart of Clamor, Da Souza elaborates a dialectic between passion and law (or taboo), between body and mind, between actions and words. In this highly physical film, words often serve as a reminder of order – both familial and societal: the repeated warnings of the older sister and later Johannes’ own ‘wise’ words, when she tells Gabin that it would be better if their love transformed into friendship or a fond memory. But each time, the flame of the body is too strong, and the protagonists fail to respect ‘the law’, which they transgress despite themselves. At one point, in the open-air party scene, Gabin publicly reveals his love for Johannes by fighting a rival who too openly expresses his desire for the young woman.
This ambiguity and tension is maintained almost until the film’s final image, where, during a family lunch, the couple – already separated – realize that their love is still there, stronger than ever.
Ariel Schweitzer
Edited by Steven Yates
© FIPRESCI 2024