Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura is a short film created by three students from Supinfocom Valenciennes that plays with one of the main elements of filmmaking and photography (the “camera obscura” or “dark chamber” is the origin of the modern day “camera”), and uses it as a metaphor for blindness.

Using voice over narration, a black and white aesthetic and processed sound, the short initially follows the format of an old documentary, but it soon derails into something altogether different. Staged in a room and on the beach, Camera Obscura borrows heavily from expressionism and surrealism, using low-key lighting, bringing interior psychological elements to the scene, as well as those from dreams and the unconscious. The short follows an interior logic that strays away from conventional narrative. A stylized aesthetic is employed with geometric abstraction and a combination of live footage with 3D animation; the later is used to bring alive characters based on the works of Alberto Giacometti and Julio González.

Highlights of the short include its great use of surreal elements with echoes from Luis Buñuel’s “Un Chien Andalou” and other films, complex choreography of characters, emphasis on aesthetics and composition, and highly psychological subject.