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It does not result from an (avant-garde) anti-aesthetic stance, but occurs, in my context, as a form of reflexive body writing. Its erratic and unassuming moves materialize those of the filming subject caught in a situation of trial, where the desire to capture on celluloid grows in a state of nonknowingness and with the understanding that no reality can be "captured" without transforming.
MacDonald:
The subject stays in its world and you try to figure out what your relationship to it is. It's exactly the opposite of "taking a position": it's seeing what
different
positions reveal.
Trinh:
That's a useful distinction.
MacDonald:
Your interest in living spaces is obvious in
Reassemblage
and more obvious in
Naked Spaces
. You also did a book on living spaces.
Trinh:
In Burkina Faso, yes. And in collaboration with Jean-Paul Bourdier.
MacDonald:
Did your interest in living spaces precede making the films or did it develop by making them?
Trinh:
The interest in the poetics of dwelling preceded
Reassemblage
. It was very much inspired by Jean-Paul, who loves vernacular architecture and has been doing research on rural houses across several Western and non-Western cultures. We have worked together as a team on many projects.
Reassemblage
evolves around an "empty" subject. I did not have any preconceived idea for the film and was certainly not looking for a particularized subject that would allow me to speak
about
Senegal. In other words, there is no single center in the filmno central event, representative individual or individuals, or unifying theme and area of interest. And there is no single process of centering either. This does not mean that the experience of the film is not specific to Senegal. It is
entirely
related to Senegal. A viewer once asked me, "Can you do the same film in San Francisco?" And I said, "Sure, but it would be a totally different film." The strategies are, in a way, dictated by the materials that constitute the film. They are bound to the circumstances and the contexts unique to each situation and cultural frame.
In the processes of emptying out positions of authority linked to knowledge, competence, and qualifications, it was important for me in the film to constantly keep alive the question people usually ask when someone sets out to write a book or in this case, to make a film: "A film about Senegal, but what in Senegal?" By "keeping alive" I mean, refusing to package a culture, hence not settling down with any single answer, even when you know that each work generates its own constraints and limits. So what you see in
Reassemblage
are people's daily activities: nothing out of the ordinary, nothing "exotic," and nothing that constitutes the usual focal points of observation for anthropology's