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‘The countryside where life is good.’ An advertisement slogan like that sound good, so that the consumer nods approvingly and full of nostalgic feelings, imagines an apparently achievable paradise. Certainly in France, that’s how everybody thinks of ‘la campagne’, the national heritage that nowadays lies rustic and uninhabited. It is therefore an ideal holiday destination. Le Mézo subjects this freshly laundered image to merciless scrutiny. At the very first in pale colours in which there are vague figures of cows visible only in contour as if they are emerging from history. Even the contours of the sounds can scarcely be heard. Only the crickets as usual utter their deafening chirp. Fantasy and memory are called upon. Slowly the colouring becomes clearer, even saturated, but then in ominous slide positive. Men trudge across blue fields. Scientific Research with magnifying glass and microscope, fuelled by knowledge from a junior encyclopaedia, seems justified. In countless little sections the symbolic value of country life is confronted with new developments: electricity pylons, grain silos, planographic drawings. The sun sets with the sound of an earthquake. A family can still walk along a meadow; the birds can be heard in the background - and in the distance, traffic hurtles past.
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Erik Daams
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Sound Ermeline le Mézo, Pierre Emmanuel Poizat, Sound mixer Pierre Emmanuel Poizat, Thanks to Francisco Ruiz de Infante, Production Autour de la Terre/CICV
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