Mademoiselle Kenopsia

The eerie melancholy of a place that was once full of life but is now empty: online linguist John Koenig named this feeling “kenopsia”, and Denis Côté evokes it beautifully in the montage that opens his film. It’s like THE SHINING by way of James Benning, exploring the empty rooms of an abandoned building in a series of calm, static shots. It might have been a hotel, a hospital, an office; in any case, a place of transition. The peeling walls and torn linoleum still carry the energy of the people who once passed through here.
A woman appears and this setting becomes a stage for existentialist deliberations à la Samuel Beckett, except that her musings on life, death and the traces we leave behind extend to a formal reflection on cinema. The etymology of kenopsia derives from the Greek for “emptiness” and “seeing”. Côté demonstrates that the art of filmmaking lies in showing what we can’t see. How else to account for the devastating impact of the shot of the woman and a mysterious visitor, even though they don’t speak and we don’t know their backstories? Composition, lighting, the subtle tracking of the camera and a perfectly deployed needle drop combine to fill in the narrative gap, and we are ensnared. Such is the alchemy of mise-en- scène. (Giovanni Marchini Camia)

Denis Côté: NOS VIES PRIVÉES (2007), MAITÉ (2007), CARCASSES (2009), LES LIGNES ENNEMIES (2010), ELLE VEUT LE CHAOS (2008), CARCASSES (2009), CURLING (2010), BESTIAIRE (2012), VIC + FLO ONT VU UN OURS (2013), QUE TA JOIE DEMEURE (2014), BORIS SANS BÉATRICE (2016), TA PEAU SI LISSE (2017), RÉPERTOIRE DES VILLES DISPARUES (2018), WILCOX (2019), HYGIÈNE SOCIALE (2021), UN ÉTÉ COMME ÇA (2022)