Marie-Claude
I meet Marie-Claude in a dead end of a countryside road in the Monts d'Arrée in Brittany, France, in April 2014. « Do you want to see my dolls ? » she offers, waving to help me find my way back. In her home filled with mountains of junk I discover a world I will never leave. It haunts me and fills me with joy at the same time. This 75 year-old lady, woodcutter, ficherwoman and seamstress, is endearing and scaring at the same time. She is touching me, waking parts of me. She looks a little bit like my mother sometimes and a lot like me. I meet Marie-Claude in a dead end of a countryside road in the Monts d'Arrée Brittany, France, in April 2014. « Do you want to see my dolls ? » she offers, waving to help me find my way back. In her home filled with mountains of junk I discover a world I will never leave. It haunts me and fills me with joy at the same time. This 75 year-old lady, woodcutter, ficherwoman and seamstress, is endearing and scaring at the same time. She is touching me, waking parts of me. She looks a little bit like my mother sometimes and a lot like me. temper. No children, no family, no travels, no car. She loses her memory, and dementia took a large part of her head but she is fascinating. She never takes a shower, does not have bathrooms and hates watching the television. I feared she would not be here anymore. That she left us. Maybe she has not lost her mind as much as she would like me to believe. Her story changes, all the time. Every time. Between the truth, what she would have wanted to live, her stories are changing, evolving, mutating. During two years I saw her grow old, loose more and more the immediate memory, forget to heat, wash, eat... Marie-Claude is about this slice of old age, a single woman's fight against solitude and dementia, eating her, slowly. A fight between shaddows and light until the end, before darkness takes it all...












