Sous les flots les âmes sont / The Way The Soul Waves

Laure Prouvost’s film ‘The Way the Soul Waves’ is a reinterpretation of the myth of Icarus. In this version of events, the moment Icare-Us-Elle burns her wings on the sun and falls from the sky is the starting point for a poetic tale. As she plunges into the blue waves of the Mediterranean, she transforms into a magical anemone. Moving alongside her, we discover a shimmering and peaceful underwater world, one where everything floats and drifts as if in a dream. For this film, Laure Prouvost initiated a collaboration with a team specialising in underwater video production to capture the beauty of the seabed off the coast of Marseille and the choreography of the freedivers, who were specially costumed for the occasion. In Laure Prouvost’s liquid world, everything transforms, everything becomes hybrid: objects, either real or in glass, appear between the fingers of the anemone, then liquefy, disappear, and then reappear a little further away. A lazy jellyfish undulates with the waves, a fish-man uses his divining rod to find an unlikely spring hidden behind the seaweed. With hopes for a more empathetic and collective future, the film subtly critiques a male-dominated and individualistic society whose relentless pursuit of progress and consumption is ultimately leading to its own downfall.