Alix’s Pictures

Winner of the 1982 César Award for Best Short Film, ALIX’S PICTURES is Jean Eustache’s playful meditation on the ambiguity of images and the elusiveness of interpretation. In a room, a young woman (Alix Cléo Roubaud) describes to a young man (Boris Eustache, the director’s son) the stories, techniques, and meanings behind several of her meticulously composed black-and-white photographs. But at some point, her explanations don’t seem to match what we see. Is this because language can never accurately account for the visual? Because the viewer is being asked to perform more than a surface-level comprehension of art? Because Eustache is perpetrating some sort of absurdist practical joke? Or all of the above?