Yannick Haenel
La Reine de Némi - Film - 30min - 2017
présenté dans le cadre de l'exposition panorama 19
Film
This is an attempt to bridge, through love,
the gap between humans and the gods: a poem
in film whose aim is to love a goddess and
to be loved by her.
A man is obsessed by a mythological scene:
the one where the hunter Actaeon surprises the
naked goddess Diana bathing.
This obsession has locked him up with his books
and erotic re-enactments. We follow him from
his library to his bedroom where his wife reenacts
the scene for him.
This mythological home movie transforms into
an initiation when an Italian journey to the shores
of Lake Nemi near Rome presents our obsessive
with the splendour of the world, enabling him
to attain the truth.
Through this experience, I want the film to open
people up to the spiritual dimension of the sexual
act, of desire, of pleasure.
This is the secret behind this very old story;
this is the great subject: to grasp the golden
bough, to lift the veil of Isis.
I would like “beholders” to use their ears and
to attend to the word that speaks in the heart
of every embrace. This word, if it can be attained
– if it is awakened – is poetry.
The story of Diane and Actaeon takes place
here and now every day, for those who can see
and love. Whatever opens up between a man
and a woman harks back to the ancient memory
of ecstasy: to what is at stake at every instant
between life and death.
