The Thinking Machine #47

In their series The Thinking Machine, critics Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin create a new video essay for De Filmkrant every month.

Two women roam different city streets; home-base is absent. They are both caught up in enigmatic arrangements involving mysterious men, led along a strange, labyrinthine path. Maps are read; charts are consulted; signs are intuited. Panic states press in on these women. They are Marie (Bulle Ogier) in Jacques Rivette’s Pont du Nord (1981) and Véronique (Irène Jacob, who had previously acted for Rivette) in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Véronique (1991). The World and the Self are unsettled. But the sun still shines in the eyes, on the skin.