IXIEME - JOURNAL D'UN PRISONNIER

of BLOK Stéphane, BORGEAUD Pierre-Yves

SWITZERLAND, 2003, 01:45:00

Production : LOUISE Productions, MOMENTUM Production, TELEVISION SUISSE ROMANDE
Genre : Video art, Fiction
Keyword : Allegory, Confinement, Prison, Relation, Sexuality, Society

Summary :
Set between a true fiction and an imaginary documentary, iXième is a poetic diary in a video format left by a home prisoner, who mysteriously disappeared after more than 200 days of detention.

The prisoner, Erik Surger, a 38 years old physicist and bachelor, was condemned for a computer crime. We do not know whether it was intentional or not. He talks about his particular form of confinement. With an ordinary digital camera he films his ordinary apartment, his ordinary life. Little by little, he overcomes the passive acceptance of his situation and begins to examine and question the interior limits of personal liberty.

Surger looks for love among virtual chat room, then moves on to the transient physical comfort found in the love for sale. Prisoner in a world of images and bytes, he progressively delves into the heart of audio-visual material in order to assimilate it. Torn between his scientific rigour, his mystic aspirations, and his erotic fantasies, he must also cross the threshold of appearances in order to discover an ethereal and enchanted world of daily life right in front of him. More than anything else, he finds possibility of the great escape.

From the beginning, the approach of iXième has been pluralistic. Apart from the idea to share with the public the subjective derivation of a modern prisoner in an invisible prison plus the questions raised about the limits of freedom, the film’s ambition is to create a field of poetic vision consisting of images, sounds, words, and music. By exploring his daily life and immediate environment, this commonplace prisoner chances upon a deeper sense and a reinvigoration of life.

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