Through her gaze and voice, the filmmaker brings together two lives: that of her father, artist Peter Dumas, and her daughter Ivy. Footage from the studio in the Netherlands alternates with scenes from France, showing the facades of shops and cafés that her father paints and writes about in his diary.
Both are observed in long, attentive shots: the daughter’s face as a story is read to her; the father’s eyes, fascinated by something he sees outside, or blank and distant as he grows older and falls ill. One of the studio scenes turns out to be a miniature: the daughter is making a dollhouse in which one room recreates her grandfather’s studio. The generations are connected through the act of making.
Details of interiors and shots of trees, sunflowers, and cats in the village create an atmospheric narrative in which looking matters more than any particular plot. The film is an ode to the world as we see it, but also a melancholy record of how awareness fades, and our hold on life loosens with age.
Stills
