A young girl loses her memory as a result of a car accident in the Sahara desert. As she roams aimlessly across the hot desert, she is rescued by an elderly architect Jake. He takes her under his care and is smitten by her beauty. The moment he discovers she suffers from amnesia, he builds a beautiful past about them, claims he is her husband and even names her Kitty.
He does win over her love with his kindness and calm personality, but the twist is what happens when she gets her memory back? She discovers that her name is Daphe and she was having an extra-marital affair with another man, who is also killed in the car accident. After much contemplation, she returns to Jake as as she finds the life built on his lie more comforting than the harsh truth of her past.
A dark romance
The film, which the director Dimitri De Clercq describes as a “dark romance, was slow yet captivating. The film had few dialogues. “That is because I believe film is a visual medium and don't believe it should be loaded with words."
Dimitri has used Morocco as the location where the characters develop. “I already had visualised the house and how I would use it. The film is my way of celebrating a woman. I had Delfine Bafort (who plays Kitty) in mind when I wrote the script.”
Truly the film does celebrate her, in the way she is projected on the screen – every subtle move of her body, including that of her eyelashes, are captured brilliantly on camera, making you look at her in awe throughout the film. Dimitri reveals that “only natural lighting has been used in the film. We would wait for the perfect light and shoot. No one can say that it is a small budget film from the way it looks,” he says during the post-screening interaction.
While the story reveals Kitty is from Belgium, Jake has no past or roots. He is not defined by any specific language, culture or country. He speaks English and French.
Dimitri justifies that with, “Jake represents a man from any part of the world. But I defined him as an architect when I started writing a script for that shows that he not only builds and designs buildings but also his life when he comes across Kitty in the desert.”
Small crew
There were hardly four characters in the entire film and Dimitri explains that it was a “conscious decision. I wanted a small crew as that way everyone is intimately involved in every aspect of the film.”
During the discussion, he explained that the film can be seen from both Jake and Kitty’s point of view and they will still stand right in their decisions. “No one sees the end coming. I wanted this film to start on a dark note and end on a positive one.”
What stays on your mind is the film’s imagery. Painted like an abstract work of art on a huge canvas, every scene stands out like the perfect visual form. Even though Dimitri has dominantly used the desert sand, huge white walls (of Jake’s house) as the backdrop, the imagery created is a class apart and lingers in your mind.
