More on textures

So I continue thinking through my next steps.
I met with another David on Friday. This is not David the photographer, but David the interaction designer and since I hadn't spoken to him for quite some time I needed to update on the progress of the film. He had an interesting way of putting my dilemna: I am by myself in a dark house at the top of the hill with nothing but a candle.
It helped me recognise the fact that I am still making a film. What I mean is that in an industrial situation once you are in post it is almost as if the process of creation had ended. For this project this is not the case. I
Recently I have been quite taken with the work of Philipe Grandrieux, such as Sombre or Un Lac. I am especially interested in the way that he creates an emotional texture with a series of near abstract shots. These shots might be soft-focus, they might be just slightly oblique to the previous shot, and they invariably involve a moving camera. In no way does he compromise by making a scene, with a number of shots of the action, a theatrical situation, and then cutaways and inserts. The layer of abstraction, is one and the same with what is happening to the characters we are following. His process is organic. Or better there is no form and content. They are one and the same.
I am missing an element, in that we are not able to see Claire as human, or human enough, so that she is difficult to follow. Do I need theatre? Scenes? Not at all. So what am I afraid of? In all of what I am trying to do I am not afraid of what the character feels emotionaly, rather I don't believe that we know that by means of theatrical techniques transposed onto film.
I need to find a way, with my own style, which could not be more different than the style in Sombre or La Vie Nouvelle or Un Lac, where I am able to work in this new layer.

***

I am yet to see Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest film, Three Monkeys now playing at the BFI Southbank. If you have not seen any of his previous films, such as Climates or Uzak I would highly recommend them.

Dramaturgy

Okay, yes, it has been a while since I've posted.
It is not that I have not been working on the film, just that it has been a slow burn.
So, I have written 5 new scenes.
2 of these involve Sophie, Claire's friend. As the edit stands, it is hard to see what Sophie adds to the story. I had to make a choice, either make it into something important, or cut the character from the story. I still felt that it was important, for our view of this world, that we see Claire with a friend. As I have been putting in my head, Claire must jump of a cliff, but as it stands she is already stepped off. We need to see her on the plateau and then make the choice to jump off.
The gist of these 2 scenes? One, to help us put Claire's attitude to the forest in context, and to show how this might relate to her relationship with Claire. It also allows us to tie together some pieces that were never clear, and became muddier as the process of editing continued. Her relationship to her past, in the way that she carries a box of remembrances with her from Paul's flat, to Natalie's flat, to Norway, where she discards them.
There are three new scenes with Paul. Here to we are able to put into context the gap in their relationship and how Claire sees it, plus we see them together happy. We see how they are good together, so that it might mean something when she throws it away. Basic dramaturgy, yes, but I missed it.
And there is more. These scenes also take the film into London, and so the wider world, and provide another texture, that of sound that is loud and aggressive.
So far I have met with the actors and we are in the process of arranging the workshop. More when that is arranged.