to

Mr Thomas Krens

Guggenheim

New York

jeudi 7 juin 2001

Dear Tomas Krens,

As I said to your secratary Désiré, I want to invite you at the United Nations to see my film (with Carolyn Carlson –first part – and Jean Rouch).

It will be screen on june 18 at 7 P.M..

(If you tell mister Calvi you came invite by me it’s a free entrance).

(People who came from out of theUnited Nations have to write there name on the lists of entrance because of security before june 14 th at 6 pm. You have to call Frank Calvi to give the informations. The entrance will be at the gate of the 1^rst Ave. et 42^second street at 15 past 6 pm).

(The film won the international award Andrei Tarkovski for artistic creation and cionematographical language in 1996).

If I want to meet you is also because I came in New York with a project of an international exhibition.

For the moment I have a (very rare) book achieved to show to you. This book contain 45 pictures and If your are kind to give me an appointment during my trip in NY it will give you a good idea of this very original exhibition, we want present in NY in your museum with the support of the french cultural services.

I arrive in NY june 12 th and I come back to Paris June 20^th. Please give me a quarter of an hour or half of an hour of your time. It is very important also for the stories of the arts. (In Paris I teach at Sorbonne universtity of Paris and I can say that).

I’ll stay in New York at Laurent Burin des Roziers’s house and you can rich me there. He’s the cultural conseiller of the french ambassy.

I hope you’ll get this invitation and you’ll answer me as soon as possible.

Best Regards

Laury Granier

MUMBO-JUMBO

About Mummy Mommy, by Laury Granier

At first glance, Laury Granier's self-proclaimed mumbo-jumbo is adorned with all the seduction of nostalgia. His Luxembourg gardens have all the soft and lightly faded colours of childhood memories. Laury Granier's images are rooted in his experience of Paris in the early sixties, as when he recalls the picturesque characters of Thursday afternoon outings: the candy-floss peddler, the tramp throwing bread crumbs to the birds and the merry-go-rounds. The cleverly old fashioned, melancholic charm of the piece will remind the film enthusiast of the Ballon Rouge by Albert Lamorisse.

Yet the accelerating staccato of images keeps us from yielding to the sweet pleasures of nostalgia. It is not the simple charm of memories which causes Laury to transfigure the Luxembourg gardens, but the fierce breath of dreams and poetic fantasy. Carolyn Carlson is not Julie Andrews after all. And this secret garden also sets the stage for some tragic scenes, mysterious rituals and wonderful hallucinations.

As in a dream, the plot is simple, eclectic and yet linear : the persecution, agony, mummification and resurrection of a ballerina. As in a dream, the plot develops into a profusion of meaningful details, staging objects and masks whose symbolism remains vague at first, in a ballet of richly coloured and mysterious characters. As in a dream, the story allows for humour (hilarious Jean Rouch, placid Magi among the children's sandpits), for the incongruous (a hunting party on a merry-go-round ) and for the fantastic (Pegasus at full gallop on the Champ de Mars). As in a dream, finally, the subtlety of the narrative lies also in the enthralling evocative power of these images.

Laury Granier's oneiric aesthetics gives Mummy a special place in the history of surrealist cinema. Living up to this tradition Laury Granier makes the most of a flea market that would not look out of place in a Duchamp painting. Eccentric objects - finely worked keys, multi-coloured kites, exotic masks - are presented alongside masterful performances in unusual arts (Yo-yoand French horn players, riders and acrobats). Nothing gratuitous here! On the one hand, this cheerful bric-a-brac contributes to the euphoric atmosphere of the movie. On the other hand, the editing virtuosity, pointing to symbolic intentions, allow these apparitions to retain an other-worldly dignity. Along their quest to find the means of reviving the ballerina, the characters come across sudden and beautiful apparitions, which contrast with the hypnotic pace of the narrative. In so doing the film gives strong visual emotions. Laury Granier excels in exploiting the element of surprise, and in impressing arresting images upon our minds. As the quest brings some of the characters to the dome of the Observatory, which they have to climb, a bunch of vivid gladiolas set against the background of the dome strikes the imagination.

However, in order to transcend the fantastic and give this tale the more tormented accent its director wanted to express, something else was needed. For Laury Granier, no single technical or aesthetic approach was able to suggest the dark side of his dream. This is why Mummy Mommy is also a dance and music drama. From the very beginning, a quick succession of camera shots reveal Carolyn Carlson dancing, suffused with electric light. Some of the most striking scenes of the movie, which punctuate the more fateful moments, find their poignant beauty in the graceful improvisations of the ballerina. Accompanied by bewitching music, she is able to suggest the torments of her agony, as well as the religious mystery surrounding her embalming. So much so that at the end, during an overwhelming resurrection dance, the mummy takes off her cotton rags and, like a pagan priestess, pays an inspired tribute to love and to life, while dancing around the sculpted horse crowning the Carpeaux fountain, set in the gardens of the Observatory.

A dreamlike movie, a danced drama, but also a silent movie. Adding to the splendid originality of Laury Granier's film, written panels reinforce the majors scenes with humour. Playing, as always, on two levels - the visually stunning and the allegorical - these inserts translated in over a dozen languages, and in almost as many alphabets, not only add a humorous touch, but are also indicative of Laury Granier's searchfor a universal language.

Indeed, Laury Granier's final ambition is clearly none other that to use his camera, his memories and his imagination to trace the first words of this universal language. The ultimate paradox of this movie might very well be that having challenged the conventions of cinematographic language, it manages to move us, whatever our cultural background, in its own, highly idiosyncratic way.

"The belief in the rituals of life, the smallest and most insignificant aspects of life, of real life, that is, is such that it eventually destroys the meaning of life". It is by agreeing to cast off such a vain belief that Laury Granier was able, after seven years of effort, to complete his crazy and enlightening Mumbo-Jumbo project. Seven years to free his creative power from the tyranny of clichés, to cast off the pressing constraints of conventional production, and to re-invent, mastering them, the rules taught in film-making school.

André Breton, astute visionary, feared that imagination would tire of being neglected and misused, and would abandon man to a future without light. Some of today's cinematographic composition would lend credence to this pessimistic prophecy. Much to our relief, and to our great pleasure, Mummy Mommy is a shining exception.

Laurent Burin des Roziers

Published in Turbulences Vidéo, n.14, January 1997

Translation into english: Christophe Cuny, Laure Fournier, Catherine Pradeille

It is difficult to add anything to Mumbo Jumbo, Laurent Burin des Roziers' beautiful commentary of Laury Granier's Mummy Mommy, published in the January issue of Turbulences Vidéo. I can only bear witness to the most striking impressions the film made on me.

I was struck by the extraordinary freshness of the fantasy world inhabited by the ballerina, who is brought back to life in this story told with such wonderful crispness.The film shines as a message of hope, a call to rebirth and love. The ballerina, first torn by anguish, is delivered through an initiation to a Mystery of light (a mystery in the sense of a religious or esoteric ritual, as in the Eleusinian mysteries).

The film's montage is a masterpiece of subtlety and poetry. Laury Granier's images fulfil the most rigorous demands of thought and imagination, thanks to his virtuosity. Everything becomes music. The film itself is impregnated with sounds, carried by the musical score. Everything is dance, nothing is superfluous. The only form of verbal commentary Laury Granier allows himself are the inserts preceding each sequence.

Paul Klee would have adored this film. He would have been delighted by its colour, by its musicality, by its fade-ins, where colour and sound merge harmoniously.

The photography is absolutely superb. "Poetic scissors" were applied to the editing. It is a beautiful film, a film with a future. If the world surrealist comes to mind, it is not so much to remind us of a moment in the history of art and ideas, as to express the astonishing strength of this New Age of the Imagination, transfiguring images of reality to revive in us the fire of poetry and universal emotion.

Adelina Rodolico Gariglio, Mondovi, 21 March 1997

translation into english Christophe Cuny and Catherine Pradeille.

"Pasolini spoke of a poetic cinema in contrast to a cinema of prose. Poetry! Poetry is everywhere in Mummy Mommy, first to be found in the rush of images and in the dazzle of the montage. (...) This film is like none other today, and that is why it appeals to me and moves me."

(Jean-Paul Rappeneau, director of Cyrano among others, President of the Cinémathèque Française)

"I thank Laury Granier for this film. It is curious and poetic and it deserves showing in the "underground" world. It gives much light and optimism which is so needed in the world today!"

(Carolyn Carson, Star-ballerina and star-choreographer at the Paris Opera. )

"(...) With exemplary enthusiasm, Laury Granier launched a formidable assault against the fortress of film making. As Merlin led the knights of the round table into their adventures, Laury Granier defeated the curses and outsmarted the snares of film production, persuading one of the greatest dancers of our time to enter into the spirit of his Mumbo-Jumbo in the process. (...) Laury Granier has invented assault course editing (...)"

(Jean Rouch, film director, ex-President of the Cinémathèque Française, Professor of Cinema and Ethnology at Paris X, ethnologist)

"(...) This film is the product of an intense thought process on the subject of editing: 1700 shots (which is considerable, as a feature film will on average contain 600). The result is an intricate web of images and rhythms which give the film a dreamlike quality. The film draws on all forms of art: sculpture, architecture, dance, writing, painting, video-art and music (original music composed by Leonard Berstein's ex-Harpist at the New York Philharmonic, Margaret Brill, and by Alain Kremski, Olivier Lliboutry and Michel Deneuve)."

(in ErNeSt hebdo.96, weekly of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, n.19)

"(...) This film is an initiation fairy tale, danced entertainment, straight out of its author's fantasies, on the themes of mummification and rebirth. The director conducted his work as the painter of miniatures, dividing his film into nine chapters preceded by written panels, translated into thirteen languages. Talking about his reflection of the rituals of agony and death, the director asks: 'Isn't film making a modern form of mummification and rebirth?'"

(in Catalogue du festival du film d'art de l'UNESCO).

"(...) Laury Granier successfully confronted the problems of shooting and particularly of editing, constantly refining his work. (...)"

(Jean Gili, Professor of Cinema at La Sorbonne, critic and writer (The history of Italian cinema))

" (...) Laury Granier's gigantic chimera has seen the light of day at last, and he deserves great praise for it. His film takes us back to the golden age of the avant-garde, in the mid-twenties, when cinema was still an art, in the hands of poets. Mummy Mommy could also be called, by reference to Jean Cocteau: "The song of a poet".

(Claude Beylie, Professor of film making at La Sorbonne, film critic)

"(...) Laury Granier's film is a magic lamp: it spreads a supernatural light upon the bodies of the characters, metamorphosing them, and draws us into a strange and magical dance. (...) This film leaves us with a deep and striking impression, the impression of having had contact with pure energy, a euphoric impression, in stark contrast with any intellectual discourse. In the story told in the film, a mummy is brought back to life, anguish is exorcised and, at the end, we come to believe that we too have found once more the wild freedom of youth."

(Michelle Finck, writer, poet, script writer, professor in comparative literature at Strasbourg University, in Poésie et danse à l'époque moderne, Armand Colin)