About Los pasos del agua (Water Steps)
By Charles Tesson
After Land and Shade, land and water. A stretch of water, its crystal glitter as early as the first images, then, at the end, the ripples of steps in water (“paso” meaning both crossing and step). Two fishermen catch a corpse in their nets. The magic of inserts gives true still life images, that of a hand, which will not feel anymore, that of an ear which will not hear anymore. The spectator is seized by the visual beauty (the stretching centipede) and the surrounding sounds, from the birds singing to the shovelled soil. “No one must die without a land and without a name” says one of the fishermen. Water Steps (Los pasos del agua) has the unique force of a fantasy tale, for one has to imagine the dead man’s happiness with what the two fishermen have in mind for him.
