The video Effleurer (French for lightly touching) depicts people in an intimate moment where something has happened or is about to happen. The camera (and therefore the viewer) circles slowly around people who don’t move, as if they were frozen in time.
The camera’s movement allows multiple views onto the scene; it approaches people and objects, almost touching them. Parts of the furniture, everyday objects as well as people, their clothing, their hair and their skin slowly pass by. Closeness and distance towards the subjects and objects alternate and make the viewer feel intimately close yet at the same time excluded from the scene.
The fragmented view of the scene and the images’ slow and steady movement emphasize suspense. The subjects’ lack of mobility creates expectation and leaves the viewer to speculate on the content and meaning of the scene.
The video is re-enacting the stillness of photography, raising questions of the narrative, of interiority and exteriority.