CONTRE COURANT

Against a backdrop of cinematographic images and photographs of buildings and glimpses of the urban landscape devoid of human beings, a voice tells the story of a search for something unknown, hidden from view. It is poetic evocation of a "quête" with mythological overtones, whose object is the Bièvre, an underwater river on the outskirts of Paris.

"For several days, Pollet, an operator (his son, Sébastien Geissler) and I wandered around searching for the underground river. Pollet, besides showing the operator what shots to film, took several hundred photographs and decided to edit the two types of images together: those in motion and the still ones. When the editing was almost completed, I wrote a script with mythological connotations, inspired by the idea that the underground river was related to the Styx, the river of the Greek hell. The film's title, which alludes to our going up-river, was chosen because of its assonance with Contretemps" (P. Borker, 1998).