What to say about Trotteur? My notes say this: Jesus, this is gorgeous. If SSC 6 was screening again, I would shell out full fare just to relive this eight minutes and change. Trotteur does not shy away from narrative in the way that The Red Virgin does. Rather, it pares a narrative down to its bare elements – this is the conflict, this is the resolution. We have a young man, abused and ostracized by vicious children, who believes he can outrun a train. The village looks on, perhaps mockingly, and they all know, as do we, he can't possibly win. The bitter irony is of course that all of these people will lose this race and that belching, snorting, fire breathing mechanical beast will beat everyone in the end.
Trotteur is a visual feast. The cinematography, in glorious black and white, simultaneously demonstrates the barrenness and the beauty of the winter landscape. There is no dialog. There is no exposition. There is a boy and a machine and sheer will, both mechanical and human. In his review of this year's silent film novelty The Artist, Chris Edwards at Silent Volume wishes for a "a silent feature that isn't about its own silence, or the Silent Era, but simply about something else." I wish for the same thing, and I nominate Trotteur's director Arnaud Brisebois for the job.
