Les arbres naissent sous terre
2010 · 6m · Belgium
Directed by Manon Brûlé, Sarah Brûlé
Genres: animation, experimental, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A man prepares the funeral wake that will take place that evening; when he sets a gramophone playing to gypsy guitars, the family's mourning dissolves into an inner voyage where life and death mingle in explosions of color, form and sound.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a grief-into-transcendence story that could've been saccharine—but the Brûlés refuse the expected emotional beats, letting the gypsy guitars become a portal instead of a salve, which is frankly more dangerous and interesting than most people would dare.
A formally rigorous meditation on mourning that consciously dialogues with the Surrealist and Expressionist traditions while maintaining complete command of its visual language; the transition from wake-preparation to chromatic inner space is a case study in how sound design and editing can collapse the boundary between ritual and reverie.
The decision to let the gramophone's music *do* the transformation work—rather than layering commentary or narrative exposition—is the whole film; everything else (the animation, the color shifts, the duration) serves that single, exact choice to trust the viewer's own inner voyage.
Reviews
Pictural à souhait et esthétique avant tout, le film d'études des demoiselles Brûlé accorde une grande importance aux impressions fugitives, aux moments éphémères précieusement récoltés dans le creux des mains de la mélancolie et de la tristesse. Un petit film dont on ressort transformé, non pas chamboulé mais différent, comme l'avant d'un départ ou l'après d'un retour.