24/12/20 Lanyard Project

Nocturne Indien

As I am thinking of which objects to include on my version of a chatelaine, I was thinking of the idea of a retrospective of my life.

This reminded me of the novel Notturno indiano by Antonio Tabucchi. It tells the story of a man looking for his lost friend in India. This friend might be himself. He is in the search of his own identity. He discovers more and more by the people he dialogues with, and the places he visits or re-visits.

The filmic adaptation by Alain Corneau is equaly interesting.(Nocturne Indien).

I was able to take photos of some of the discussions in the film.

This was taken around the beginning of the film at the hospital in Bombay. Here the idea of memory is evoked, but I was also interested in the moment when the doctor looks for the "friend's" name in the pile of files. He is overwhelemed by the amount of patients. All he can see are many names which mean nothing to him. He also claims that there are millons of patients every year, India being so densly populated.

He later talkes about his interest in the heart; this small muscle which makes and unmakes life. This joins my idea of placing my design on the heart. It is also where we feel emotions which also constitute our identity.

Later on the main character Rossignol writes a letter to people of his past. He mentions the scenery, the animated surroundings... This is a way of reflecting on his life.

Soon after, he visits Elephanta Island to admire the carvings of the god Shiva in the caves. Shiva creates and transforms the universe. He is at the origin of all identities.

Rossignol continues his journey at the station where he has to spend the night sleeping on the floor, surrounded by many other people. He gets up and walkes around. This shows him as the individual versus the group. Schubert's String Quintet in C Major follows him all along the film, as if it was an inside melody, as he gets lost in the vast country of India.

On the train to Madras, he meets a man called Peter Schlemihl, similarly to the title character from the novel by Adelbert von Chamisso: Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte.

In the novel the character sells his shadow to the Devil against a bottomless purse. He is rejected in society because he has no shadow and the Devil is ready to give his shadow back but against his soul this time.

The man on the train, then continues and talkes about his past in the concentration camps. He once noticed a statuette of an Indian divinty on the desk of a nazi doctor. The doctor told him it represented the circle of life and rebirth. For him, the statue represents the dance of life. He also mentions the fact that everywhere he goes he is an outsider. He is french is Germany, and german in France. He does not belong anywhere.

He later quotes Victor Hugo's novel: Les Travailleurs de la mer

"Le corps humain pourrait bien n’être qu’une apparence. Il cache notre réalité. Il s’épaissit sur notre lumière ou sur notre ombre. La réalité c’est l’âme. À parler absolument, notre visage est un masque. Le vrai homme, c’est ce qui est sous l’homme. Si l’on apercevait cet homme-là, tapi ou abrité derrière cette illusion qu’on nomme la chair, on aurait plus d’une surprise. L’erreur commune, c’est de prendre l’être extérieur pour l’être réel. Telle fille, par exemple, si on la voyait ce qu’elle est, apparaîtrait oiseau."

In Madras, Rossignol visits a professor at the Theosophical Society.

The professor finds a letter written by Rossignol's friend. He is doubtful about the future, and looks back nostalgicaly at moments he spent with the professor. He mentions fate and how it affected his life.

The professor continues saying that he is ignorant of the material life of Xavier, Rossignol's friend, and that it is't good to know about other people's exterior appearance.

Before Rossignol leaves the professor quotes Fernando Pessoa.

“We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.”

On his way to Goa, Rossignol meets a small boy with his crippled sister and mother. The sister who can predict the future and tell the past.

The soothsayer says it is impossible to find his Atman because he is someone else and does not know where he is. She says that the visible appearance of the world is an illusion.

After trying again, she has visions of Rossignol on a boat, on the sea, there is a battle, and foreign soldiers arrive, but it is too far away.

Later in the film, he is found on a beach in Goa. A young girl decided to sit next to him and start a conversation.

He answers her, by saying he is looking for someone who got lost near that beach. She asks him if his friend wants to be looked for. Rossignol tels her that he isn't sure. She then goes on to say that in that case, he shoudn't be searching for Xavier.

When she asks for a description of his friend, he gives which resembles him. He has straight brown hair, speaks portugese and is about as tall as him.

The end scene was also interesting.

He meets a woman who seems to recognize him. She is a photographer and questions whether her photographs are real moments or just cinema. She gives the anecdote of the image she took of a man a few seconds before he was shot dead.

Rossignol then talkes about what he does in India. He replies that he searches the archives the old things.

He is looking for his friend, he knows everything about him, but his friend, nothing about him, he once knew him outside of history, he seeks a past, an answer, he searches himself.

"He is In this hotel one evening like this evening we will be at this table here at a certain moment I see him down at the table where we were at before, and he looks at me without moving, maybe he also recognized the woman.

He no longer wants to find him, and continues to watch him without him realizing it."

He finishes with "This is the end what else can happen".

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