The Co(te)lette Film

The Co(te)lette Film is the film version of the dance production Co(te)lette. British director Mike Figgis was on board to direct this uncompromising film based on a concept and choreography by Ann Van den Broek. The film was selected for the segment ‘Belgian Cinema Today’ of the International Film Festival in Ghent. 　　In The Co(te)lette Film three women dance in a rather intimate atmosphere, caught between desire and fulfillment. No confrontation, rivalry, story, solution or ending; the storyline in The Co(te)lette Film is restless and empty. 　　“Devastated! Quite devastated! That is how you feel after watching Mike Figgis’s film version of Ann Van den Broek’s intense, controversial and award-winning choreography Co(te)lette. Afterward the discussion can flare up, as it does after every dance film, about the filmmaker’s contribution to this unique art form. One that reaches seldom seen heights thanks to the Flemish choreographer. With films such as Leaving Las Vegas, Mr. Jones, Internal Affairs on his résumé, Mike Figgis is not just anyone either. With Timecode he showed that he was not afraid to explore new narrative forms. In The Co(te)lette Film he again uses his tried and tested split-screen system. He uses it sparingly and it does not distract the viewer from the choreography itself. 　　It concerns three women who are confronted by their own bodies as well as the bodies of the other women. They also want to engage the spectators standing around the podium. Thanks to the camera work, which alternates between close-ups and long shots, the cinema audience is engaged as well. All the elements add up to a confrontational performance about desire, lust, fulfillment, attraction, rejection, seduction, searching, finding and not finding. Unlike the stage production, in the film there are spectators standing around the podium. When Ann Van den Broek won a prestigious Dutch dance award for Co(te)lette, the jury called it ‘a daring and fragile choreography, raw, confrontational and gripping’. There is no better way to describe the physical power of the performance. The scars on the dancers’ bodies are visible. Figgis’s camera is merciless.” 　　Source: Film Festival Ghent 　　director Mike Figgis 　　concept and choreography Ann Van den Broek 　　dance Frauke Mariën, Cecilia Moisio and Judit Ruiz Onandi 　　extra’s and understudy’s Erin Harty, Karen Lamberts and Emma Seresia 　　special extra’s Lie Antonissen, Surah Dohnke 　　première 19 October, 2010, Filmfestival Ghent (B)