Un rêve plus long que la nuit
Un rêve plus long que la nuit (A Dream Longer Than the Night) is French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle’s fairytale trip through the female erotic psyche. Most known for her brightly-coloured monumental sculptures and her series of Tirs assemblage paintings—in which she would shoot at the artwork with a gun—Saint Phalle was also an accomplished filmmaker. Her two feature films form a curious diptych externalising hidden and complex impulses of female sexuality. She upheld her convictions by not only writing and directing, but importantly also playing in front of the camera as well.
Programmer’s Note
Originally titled Camelia and the Dragon, Un rêve begins with an introduction to the young Camelia, who throughout the story will search for the meaning of life, death and love. We follow Camelia through a fairytale dreamland in which she meets a dragon, a beautiful bird-man and a black witch who grants her wish to become a grown-up. Princess Camelia is now forced to reckon with the increasingly strange and terrifying World of the Grown-Ups. She discovers several unexpected settings: an absurd metal factory where objects are made only to be destroyed; a perverse Boarding School for Young Ladies; and on a battlefield in an all-out war, replete with phallus cannons and fired by a lecherous general.
The film is a stew of ideas and images bubbling up from Saint Phalle’s creative well. She was aided by many friends, patrons and fellow artists—including her companion Jean Tinguely, whose enormous walk-in statue La Tête serves as a central setting of the film. For all its strangeness, sensuality and wonder, Saint Phalle’s film has been little seen since the 1970s. The magical film provides deeper evidence that fairytale was a central theme across the artist’s work. —Herb Shellenberger
