Mademoiselle Kenopsia

Kenopsia is a word coined by linguist John Koenig to describe the exceptional nature and amazing atmosphere of a space once vibrant but now abandoned. In his latest film, Denis Côté portrays and explores just such a place, a labyrinthine amalgam of the office, hospital, church and home, still full of objects that once gave it meaning, but which now have a non-human reality. These rooms are watched over by a woman, their only inhabitant and guardian, who is at once united with the place but also condemned to it. Her loneliness is countered by existential monologues and short, torn encounters with random characters. However, the woman is not the main character of the film. Rather, it is the space itself, animated by its own energy, having its own language composed of the murmurs of machinery, the buzzing of lamps, the sounds specific to individual objects. The soundscape, which stands out in the foreground, imbues this world with a non-human aura. The calm and slow observation of space along with careful and thoughtful composition of frames, allow us to reflect on the essence of loneliness and emptiness and move away from the plot towards contemplation.