From Hong Kong to Antartica and from Pisa to Easter Island, Robert Cahen has been everywhere and in the course of the years, made many 'cartes postales video' which give his impressions of all these different places. Just like the other restless travellers who cross the continents in their eternal quest for peace of mind, Cahen must be addicted to travel. It seems as if he has finally found what he was searching for, Thanks to the book Oreiller d'herbes by the Japanese author Sôseki. Quotations from this book form the accompanying commentary for Corps flottants. The I figure in the book, a painter, is also the main character in the video. “When life gets difficult, look somewhere else for peace. Once you finally realize that life is difficult everywhere, poetry blooms and the art of painting is born!” The painter had become insensitive to the hardness of existence because he considers life to be a painting. He looks across the Japanese hills with here and there a small meadow and sketches. The idyllic surroundings are made even more attractive by the presence of a warm spring where we see a man and a woman bathing in the ultimate of relaxation. Entirely at one with their surroundings, even a heavy rain shower cannot destroy their pleasure. Their bodies float in the warm water like the traveller roaming across the world. The traveller who no longer searches because he has discovered that that intensely desired peace of mind can be found everywhere, if you look at things in the right way. Cahen has captured that 'right way' with this video, although I wonder if his philosophy holds true everywhere. The splendid surroundings add quite considerably to the tranquillity of Corps flottants which also holds up when you consider the suggestive sound and camera work. It wouldn't have taken much for me to be on the next plane to Japan.
– Lies Holtrop
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Text Sôseki, Robert Cahen, Camera Daniel Schlosser, Robert Cahen, Sounds, Concept, Music, Michel Chion, Sound and sound mixing, Pierre Emmanuel Poizat, Editing Christian Cuilleron, Voice Junya Isuru, With Mayumi Toda, Kunio Mishima, Thanks to Claude Hudelot, Dedicated to Michel Chion, Production Yasmina Demoly (CICV), Les Films du Tambour de Soie, P. Schaeffer, Robert Cahen
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