The only film festival in Madagascar is the Rencontres du Film Court (RFC). It was recently renamed Madagascourt Film Festival (MFF). The Malagasy event has been since its first editions a platform for the dissemination of experimental works. The jury of the 17th edition (27 November - 04 December 2022) awarded a Malagasyan narrative short with a very large and original title.
In Madagascar, national filmmakers have practiced experimental cinema, a genre little exploited. They were able to screen their short film at the RFC (now MFF). These include Fifa Randrianasolo (La naissance de la mort - The Birth of Death), Rina Ralay Ranaivo (Rompre le silence - Breaking the Silence) and Linda Volahasiniaina (Œuf - Egg).
This is also the case of Hary Joël, revealed in 2021 by his short (animation) The unusual kinky quaint peculiar weird strange rum queer odd and bizarre day of a shadow man. His first film won the Zébu d'or animation panafricaine, at RFC 2021.
It was nominated for the 19th Tarifa-Tangier African Film Festival (FCAT 2022, Spain - Morocco).
His second short film carries such a long title. This is A Doll House In The Memory Of The Men And Their Dreams Of Ash Buried Under The Sight of Midnight For The Sweet Rods Of The Warren Farm Cover The True Lord Of The Cage And The Lullabies Lies (21mn, 2022).
This new short, in addition to being the winner of the Zébu d'or in the fiction category of the pan-African competition, was awarded the Silver Foal (Poulain d'argent) at the 28th edition of FESPACO (Burkina, 2023) last March.
A fully deserved consecration.
A Doll House tells the story of Cid, a young man who calls into question society's ideals of success (to serve the "country", to get to the top, to be loved, to be appreciated, to be rich). His girlfriend Mira tries to dissuade his nonconformity by telling him "We are here to fight for our dreams, for what we want, to have a house of our own, money, to live normally like everyone else", but nothing helps. He definitely wants to live another life outside the norms, even social structures, metaphorically represented as an endless building. As for freedom, it is metaphorically represented as an exit door to which he will have to find the key.
The quest for freedom is a theme that Hary Joël has already addressed in his previous short film The unusual kinky quaint telling the story of a fictional character who rebels and does not want to act according to the script. But this quest turns out to be illusory given that the rebellion of this protagonist was itself predetermined by the demiurge screenwriter.
In A Doll House, the no less illusory search for freedom is coupled with an existential question, about the meaning of life, to which Cid does not have the answer when questioned by Mira "But what do you want in the end ?", he replies "I don't know ! But I want to leave !". It will turn out that the key to exit the building, the key that the protagonist has sought in vain from various other occupants, symbolic characters, The Slave (a workaholic), The Mother (a young mother completely devoted to her child), The Ghost (a being who claims to be master and prisoner of his own prison), The Blues Man (a desperate man who cries to support his condition), this key simply does not exist, never existed.
From a philosophical point of view, Hary Joël is thus closer to the posture of Baruch Spinoza ("Freedom does not exist") than that of René Descartes, Emmanuel Kant or Jean-Paul Sartre ("Freedom exists"). Two male and female voiceovers who respond to each other proclaim the conclusion : "The search of freedom is vanity for those who love. Desire is the root of all suffering. The true prison of our soul. / Noone can be free and in love. / But finally the cage isn't that bad. We aren't free. But we are safe in this harmony ". All this during a scene where Cid returns home and reconciles with Mira. The opportunity for the filmmaker to compose a shot which is a tasty nod to the painting "The Lovers" (1928) by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte.
This moment of comfort and harmony is untimely interrupted by lightning which falls on the building and sows general panic within the occupants. According to Hary Joël : "Lightning represents a "sudden" disaster that could suddenly reduce to ashes, deconstruct this ultra-complex system that is human society. We think we live in a world that we have totally colonized, conquered and controlled, a world where we feel safe behind our walls, but in truth, one tiny swipe would be enough to bring our world down like a pyramid of cards (like the great civilizations which have disappeared over the ages). People may seem civilized, respectful and altruistic in a whole but a single disaster such as a shortage, a pandemic or an economic or political crisis, in my opinion, would be enough to make them forget all the societal, human values that they have developed so well and that they have respected so well up to now (temporarily or indefinitely). It's as if we had erected walls so high that we thought they would never collapse, that everything is fine, but in reality, there is never zero risk. And it is sometimes the greatness of empires that has brought them down."
On the directing side, A Doll House is a globally coherent work. The artistic choices of the director are at the service of the film, such as the decision to adopt a 4:3 format. The frame thus appears as a skylight through which we observe the occupants of the building, but it also reinforces the Kafkaesque atmosphere of each apartment. If his first short film The unusual kinky quaint is almost exclusively composed of animation and uses inter-titles for the dialogues as in the era of silent cinema, A Doll House mixes animation and live action with actors a theater company. The performance of the actor Sarobidy Razafimanantsoa who plays the role of Cid, the protagonist, is less solid than that of Tsimijaly Irina (The Mother) and Toavina Andriantsitohainamalala (The Slave). Zolalaina Tabitha, who embodies Mira, fails to be authentic in her acting, her dismay and sadness when her friend Cid leaves her to look for the key are forced and do not sadden us. A part of the animation is deliberately chaotic to the point of being not recommended for people with photosensitive epilepsy but this choice once again serves Hary Joël's intention of expressing Cid's loss of bearings as he wanders through the endless, labyrinthine building. The film's music is essentially composed of royalty-free titles carefully chosen by the filmmaker to accentuate the unreal, nightmarish atmosphere of the universe he wants to represent. Finally, the male and female voiceovers that punctuate the short film are sometimes redundant when they tell the story that the pictures already show. They nevertheless bring added value to the work because Hary Joël also uses them to poetically express his vision of the world.
A Doll House… (Une maison de poupées, Tranom-Bakoly...) is selected at 17th Festival Cinémas d'Afrique in Lausanne (17-20 August 2023). The first screening is scheduled for Saturday, August 19, at 10am, Salle Paderewski. The second takes place the next day, Sunday 20, Salle des fêtes, at 4:30pm.
Aina Randrianatoandro
Film critic
Founding member of the Association des Critiques Cinématographiques de Madagascar (ACCM)
Individual member of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI)
