Jean-Claude Bélégou cinéma : CHRISTMAS TALE

 

Short film 26 minutes sound.

"A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle"
(back when feminists still had a sense of humor)

Apolline welcomes her friend Juliette, whom she has invited to spend Christmas. Together they decorate a large tree in a slightly childlike and dreamlike, magical atmosphere.
Memories of Christmas are recounted.
Following the tragic end of the film Apolline, Apolline being in mourning for her lover Hector, Juliette has planned to come with her boyfriend Jules, and, knowing Apolline's distressed situation, has taken care to invite a second boy Arthur, a friend of her friend, so that Apolline does not find herself alone in front of a couple.
They prepare the festive dinner for four.
These two boys, Jules and Arthur, finally cancel their visit at the last moment, for rather occult reasons. Break in the air? "Liquid life" having unscrupulously given in, despite their promise, to another opportunity to spend this Christmas evening?
So they meet up one-on-one, dinner and warm conversation. At first disappointed, they joke about their disappointments with the boys. Then the conversation broadened to other subjects.
Exchange of gifts and books. They dance together at the end of dinner and a little tipsy, "tipsy" slump in a large armchair. Kiss. A tender relationship ensues
A one-night stand in their lives.

Finally, there is perhaps a nostalgic dimension in several of my films, so from the summer holidays of childhood or adolescence we move on to the nostalgia of beautiful Christmases with Christmas tree and pretty table and all the decorum! Nostalgia and idealization.
So filming a beautiful Christmas, all in artificial light, with candles and sparklers, that was my initial desire, again based on a photographic series "De tous les jours" that I had created in 2000.
Two young women have invited boys to celebrate Christmas, which at the last moment lets them down, they find themselves alone and it's a slightly sad and disillusioned Christmas...

 

To this must be added a sociological dimension to try to grasp the changes in values, ideologies and behaviors of this generation of 30/35 year olds born with the Internet and who grew up with social sites, dating apps, and love zapping, if we can still talk about love... This sociological dimension that I had already tried to express through the soundtrack of Aurane. It is in particular through the sociology books that they offer each other as gifts, and their dialogues that accompany this exchange, that this research emerges.
Chloé wanted this story to end with a story between them. It seemed to me to be completely in tune with the times.