Lucie & Maintenant –- Journal nomade

A young couple makes their way from Paris to Marseille in an old VW bus. But this is no ordinary road trip, and the expedition has firm rules: they must make a stop at each and every service area they pass, stay the night in every second one and never leave the motorway during the whole journey. Thus, instead of taking 7 hours, their trip takes 33 days.

LUCIE? When in May 1982 Julio Cortázar and his companion Carol Dunlop, embarked upon a journey from Paris to Marseille in a VW camping car, they subjected themselves to some strict rules: they stopped at every rest area, visited a maximum of two such areas a day and spent the night at every other stopover. Furthermore they banned themselves from leaving the motorway. Instead of the seven hours needed for this journey, they took 33 days of their lives, knowing their days were numbered owing to serious diseases. The result was “The autonauts of the cosmoroute or a timeless journey from Paris to Marseille”. It is in the spirit of that magnificent book that Nicolas Humbert andWerner Penzel embark on in this journey with Océane Madeleine and Jocelyn Bonnerave, she a writer, he a musician. They are the characters of a forthcoming fiction film for which the film-makers are doing some prospection. But it gave rise to more than fiction, to a unique essay, on which Simone Fürbringer joined in for the editing.
ET MAINTENANT? Is it to suggest this desire to pinpoint, at the heart of the journey, the fullness of the moments that lend meaning to the passing of time? The motorway and its service stations are the metaphor of this inexorable passing of time in which the aim is to gain a foothold. The film assembles heterogeneous fragments which it pieces together to compose through associations and hiatuses a narrative held together by the guiding threads of the beautiful texts written and read by Océane Madeleine. It is driven by the readiness to see in the raw this dog, this crow, these children, this bride, this fumespewing car, but also the wind, rain, the tones of the dawning day, the flashes of neon in the night. The film can also stand back from its theme, when colour gives way to black and white, when the text meditates to itself and the music leaves a nostalgic imprint on the meanders of the narrative. LUCIE ET MAINTENANT invites us to make an incredibly journey that is poetic and imaginary at the same time. Inspired by these luminous “present moments”, the travellers discover that there is “forever another day” to take on the world between joy and sadness.
Jean Perret, Visions du Réel 2007