So Close I Can't See You

"There is a verse by William Carlos Williams: "outside myself/there is a world". This verse turned me on because I think it's something that happens while making a film. Outside myself there is a world...

...I always want to be inside and often I feel outside. And I think it's something that cinema can convey better than literature. Cinema has it's own power. And for me that power has to do with exile. I know exile is a very powerful word. It means something very strong and very dramatic. But exile is sometimes in very tiny details.You can be exiled outside a café. This woman is in a car, seated beside a man. He is next to her for a long time and they have nothing to say. They are afraid of feeling that they might be attracted to each other. And it's only when she is outside and he's inside and he's smoking a cigarette, only when she can see him in the distance, that she feels she can make a choice: "I will make that step toward him. I was not able to make the step when he was seated next to me because he was so close I couldn't see him, in a way. I couldn't foresee myself next to him. But by seeing him in the distance, outside my world, means that I have to make that step". And I think this is the essence of what cinema has to do with exile. I'm sure of that. I don't know why, but it has struck me often. Maybe it's because the audience is also in this position. Outside the world of the film and yet so close. And yet you have to make the decision. A film that grabs you and holds you tight and never gives you freedom to move toward – for me something is missing here. There must be, in a film, a certain distance, so that you have to step into it. And that's something–"

words: Claire Denis in conversation with Atom Egoyan in 'Subtitles - on the foreignness of Film'