Dans les villes

Autumn in Montréal: blind Jean-Luc photographs the light, which he can't see, but he feels. The depressive Carole tries to disappear from life. The elderly Joséphine lives in the past. Fanny looks after the well being of the city's trees, but it's hard for her to express her deep sensitivity to the world. Until she meets the other three.
Compassion is the leitmotiv of Dans les villes. The film tells of people who have too little of it, and of people who get too little of it. And of one who has an excess of compassion, but can't manage to pass it on. Catherine Martin was inspired by her observations of big city life, by the loneliness that meetings with strangers often arouse. The stories that she tells go well with the autumnal melancholy. Nothing is pronounced; the film gives the spectator a sense of the protagonists' feelings, much like the group of blind people at the beginning of the film who touch a sculpture in order to understand it. The hierarchy of the senses is shifted. Dans les villes is a film that you want to see a second time, but this time with your eyes closed.
Christoph Terhechte