Films Henri Storck

Structured in visual chapters: the port, anchors, the wind, the spray, the dunes, the North Sea… A series of images that need no anecdote or explanation. Storck offers a glimpse of Ostend, aspects that order its multiple constitutive elements; The water, the sand, the waves, vital cinematic language displayed in simple pictures. A poetic and kinetic shock, without fiction or sound, which relieves film from its narrative obligation and restores it to the world of sensations that it can alone carry.

For Histoire du soldat inconnu (Story of the Unknown Soldier) Storck watched newsreels for the whole of 1928, the year when 60 nations signed a pact outlawing war, and juxtaposed this heart-warming utopia with the signs of a forthcoming conflict (this was in 1932) – burgeoning nationalism, police brutality, excessive colonialism, bellicose politics. Ferocious editing sarcastically juxtaposes these good intentions with the political farce of speeches and parades, all to the tune of factory chimneys collapsing in slow motion and the exhumed body of an “unknown soldier”. —cinematek.be

Short ethnographic documentary on the Tetela tribe in Congo based upon footage and commentary by director Luc de Heusch from 1953 reassembled by Damien Mottier (Université Paris Nanterre) and Grace Winter (CINEMATEK).

Short ethnographic documentary showing some everyday life scenes based upon footage shot by director Luc de Heusch in Congo in 1954 reassembled by Damien Mottier (Université Paris Nanterre) and Grace Winter (CINEMATEK).

Short ethnographic documentary showing a leopard dance based upon footage shot by director Luc de Heusch in Congo in 1954 reassembled by Damien Mottier (Université Paris Nanterre) and Grace Winter (CINEMATEK).

Borinage left Henri Storck profoundly disturbed by injustice and social poverty. When he was offered a chance to make the film he undertook an in-depth survey into the working class and slums and shouldered his camera as a militant filmmaker. In a plot of Walloon slums he staged characters and situations as examples. All shots work on intensity, the filling of the frame, which gives the impression of being unable to breathe, of being trapped, closed in. And in the face of this overflowing misery is the emptiness of the expressions, the absence of emotion. Survival is all. But the message of hope is there, with the destruction of slums (the hovels are demolished as if getting rid of a tyrant) and the construction of garden cities surrounded by trees in bloom and a future of song, leaves one with the impression that man’s dignity has been safeguarded.

A montage of images from newsreels; Storck's edit contains comical, poignant, even chilling juxtapositions.