Un monde plus grand - A Bigger World Directed by Fabienne Berthaud

Un monde plus grand - A Bigger World

Directed by Fabienne Berthaud

Starring: Cécile de France, Narantsetseg Dash, Tserendarizav Dashnyam, Ludivine Sagnier, Arieh Worthalter, Catherine Salée, Thomas Coumans, Steven Laureys, Timothée Régnier, Jeremy Alonzi, Ganbat Ulziibayar, Elyne Knauf, Galiya Barii, Naranjarga Bay , Otgonnyam Choijil

Country: France, Belgium

Year 2019

Author of review: Roberto Matteucci

Click Here for Italian Version

"Every pain has an end."

Mongolia has the charm of virgin land to discover, fantastic, and especially magical.

Magical for its natural dimension, a vast steppe, a torrid summer and a cruel winter. The territories outside Ulan Bator are immense but with a little population.

The inhabitants have a deep and devoted spirituality.

Soyombo, Ulan Bator

The symbol of Mongolia, present in the flag and any public buildings, is the Soyombo. The ideogram was conceived by Zanabazar, a seventeenth-century artist monk. The meaning is "may the Mongol nation exist by its own right". Soyombo has a religious sense, the centre represents yin and yang. Around, there are other geometric figures, they have spiritual meanings, such as sky, fire, sun, nature.

Despite many years of communism, of atheism (during the dictatorship all Buddhist temples were destroyed) spirituality never disappeared, remaining indispensable for the Mongols, including young.

The religion of Buddhism is the most evident, more disguised is shamanism. They both coexist without problems. In the smoke-filled tents, shamans celebrate rites with songs, percussions to attract spirits.

In a harsh, lonely world, inhabited by tough people, with a fascinating but also ruthless nature, the excess of spirituality could be a shock for a wealthy spoiled conformist enlightenment French person in a depressive crisis.

It happens in Corine, in the film Un monde plus grand - A Bigger World by director Fabienne Berthaud, presented at the 76th Venice Film Festival.

Corine Sombrun is married to Paul. Their relationship is idyllic, they love each other madly. Paul suddenly dies. Corine is prostrated by pain. She sinks into depression. A friend offers her a job as a sound engineer in Mongolia. In the Mongolian steppe, she meets a group of nomads. The Shaman Oyun recognizes a special quality in Corine: "This woman is a shaman".

She returns to Paris, doubtful. The confrontation between science and transcendence begins.

However, do spirits exist? The director explains her opinion:

Do you believe in spirits? In the dark world? 

I still don’t know anything, but I decided to believe in it. When you are in Mongolia, it is difficult not to believe. Everyone believes in spirits, they are a very connected, spiritual people. The Mongolians do not do anything significant without asking the spirits and nature if they agree. As for us, we have been plundering nature for a long time without asking! There, you consult the shaman like we go to the doctor. During my first scouting trip, someone suggested to me to do a ceremony to see if the spirits agreed with my making the film. An old shaman brought us into the forest and, luckily, the answer was positive! (1)

Is Corine a real shaman?

Undoubtedly, she is a bourgeois, snob, proud, atheist woman. She believes in unbelieving naturalism, in ecology without God, she is a bio-capitalist, with organic honey on the table. Her reaction to the decease of the husband is typical for an agnostic person: annihilation, sloth, melancholy, inertia. For a selfish godless, death is definitive and kills hope and life.

Therefore, Corine, as a perfect opportunist, follows the first form of spirituality who meets.

She becomes a shaman because she went to Mongolia. If she had gone to Japan, she would have become a Zen Buddhist, if she had gone to Africa, she would have become an animist etc.

Corine accepts Mongolian religiosity but not for fear or mysticism or fortitude. It is only profit for her, as if shamanism were a Prozac.

High light, close-up, Corine and Paul gasp, they have coitus, everything is white, they are happy.

Cut, same bed, same close-up, Corine cries, happiness is gone, Paul is dead.

The representation is relentless: a nice bourgeois flat, scattered there are dozens of musical scores.

Counterbalance is poverty and no well-being in Mongolia. Establishment-shot on the sky and nature. It is the demonstration of the unpolluted and beautiful place. A crowded and dirty bus is taking Corine to the steppe. Around it, there is an amazing landscape: the horses run free. It is summer, the light is bright, the director alternates coach images with the external ones.

They all sleep together in the tent. During ritual, the sound of the drums accentuate the rhythm of the film. The shaman is agitated.

How can an artist describe the supernatural without being pathetic?

Fabienne Berthaud talks about her experience:

A major issue of the film was how to deal with the trances and visions. How to portray the invisible. What does the black world that the shamans talk about look like? How to portray your heroine’s visions? I imagined an organic, monochrome, spectral and mysterious world. I sought inspiration from Artavazd Pelechian. A world of sensations rather than a world of representations. I wanted to work with texture, shadows, blurs, to distort real images. Sound also plays a crucial role in the film. The acoustic vibrations of the shamanic drums, the animals’ breath, their hooves on the earth. I tried to make the spectator experience something physical, that they feel rather than see. I never tried to explain. Maybe that is what the invisible world is. (1)

Sensations rather than representations, distortion real images, sounds, drums, animal breath.

Corine sees lights in the black background or completely white scene. The shots blurred because the spirits cannot be clear. It is similar to new age paintings, such as the pictures of Redon or Moreau. So, the author chooses the dreamlike projection, like unconscious images. Sequences belonging exclusively to Corine, just her perceives them. It is different for Oyun, shamanism is her existence, and does not need an iconographic explanation. The symbolism belongs Westerners, for the Mongols, everything is part of life, there is no intermediation like crossing through personal mourning to have a perception.

The film has a powerful metaphysical, formal language, with the confidence of combining the microcosm of a Parisian depression woman, with the mystical macrocosm in Mongolia. The Fabienne Berthaud narrates a poetic environment with passion, but sometimes she exaggerates and the result is some funny parody.

Irony prevails: spirits who love alcohol and biscuits, a nomad who is riding a horse in the steppe with solar battery tied in the saddle.

The funniest scene is a false ceremony. The nomads pretend, as in a show, inexistent shamanic rites to cheat naive tourists. The aim is to sell some odd and fake objects as magical.

Exaggeration produces some caricatures. Shaman Oyun looks like Master Miyagi. She orders Corine to chop wood, milk the cows, get water in the river, she orders to obey screaming in her face. Corinne is candid: "When do we start?"

The dispute ring between science versus spirituality, happens in a hospital in Paris. Returning to the French capital, Corine confides in her sister, then goes to a clinic for checks. The doctor, perplexed, asks her embarrassing questions. Science is represented by the zigzag of an electroencephalogram, by alternating light. Close-up of Corine with electrodes on her head. Her eyes are blank and lost, there is incredulity: an electroencephalogram, even if produced by an advanced and modern scientific machine, cannot read the soul.

Who wins between science and transcendence?

Certainly, Corine, because the director is her ally. Inside the river, Corine has a katabasis, she has the liberating vision of her husband as suggested by the shaman: "you must leave him alone".

(1) https://medias.unifrance.org/medias/130/73/215426/presse/a-bigger-world-presskit-english.pdf

#UnMondePlusGrand #AbiggerWorld #FabienneBerthaud #CecileDeFrance #NarantsetsegDash #TserendarizavDashnyam #LudivineSagnier #AriehWorthalter #CatherineSalee #ThomasCoumans #StevenLaureys #TimotheeRegnier #Jeremy Alonzi, GanbatUlziibayar #ElyneKnauf #GaliyaBarii #NaranjargaBay #OtgonnyamChoijil #France #Francia #Mongolia #UlanBator #Soyombo #Zanabazar #Shaman #Sciamano #Shamanism #Sciamanesimo #76VeniceFilmFestival #VeniceFilmFestival #Venezia76 #Venice76 #MostraCinemaVenezia #MostraDelCinemaDiVenezia #Cinema #Film #Movie #popcinema #www.popcinema.org