Piaffe

Everything in Piaffe is attractive, including the title: a single word with French etymology and an ineffably elegant double ‘f’, the only letter in the alphabet to ascend and descend at the same time. [--] In the opening scene of the film, a botanist uses this obsolete object as a woman watches. We observe him with her, and he in turn sees a stereoscopic world of ferns curling and unfurling in meticulous detail. Already, an array of erotics has been set in motion: invitations to a haptic mode of vision via extreme close-ups of coiled fronds, scopophilia and fetishism aroused by the machine and by the chain of gazes going from woman to botanist to plant. In addition to all of this, there is the sumptuous use of 16mm film, as well as an actress who resembles a young Charlotte Gainsbourg and plays a soignée, submissive woman who would fit perfectly into a Catherine Breillat film. And none of this is to mention that this woman later grows a horse’s tail.

Laura Staab / Another Gaze