in the coincidence of a thought everything is dream
a smile like a sliver of moon lights the night

I can’t believe I haven’t already posted this haunting, atmospheric videopoem, considering that when Swoon (Marc Neys) originally uploaded it to Vimeo nine months ago, I commented that I’d be looking forward to an English-subtitled version and he swapped one in almost immediately, with a translation by the obviously very prompt Annmarie Sauer. It’s the latest in a series of films Swoon has made with texts by the Belgian poet Marleen de Crée, and as with his very first such effort — Nog Niet / Not Yet — he worked with the actress Katrijn Clemer, who also supplied the voiceover. He posted some process notes to his blog:

Marleen de Crée, one of my favourite Belgian poets has a new collection coming in March; Fluisterlicht (Uitgeveij P., 2014)

I consider myself lucky to know her (and her husband Jean) well enough to have received some of the poems of the new collection beforehand.
It’s always a joy to work with Marleen’s words. The intimate nature of her poems are perfect to create scapes and images for.
This time for ‘Blues’, I chose to do the filming myself again. Extra info from the writer about the new collection gave me a clear idea of what and how I wanted to do this one.

As always I found Katrijn Clemer to be and have the perfect voice to read Marleen’s poetry.
Around her reading I created this track: [listen on SoundCloud]

[…]

I wanted to create the atmosphere of long nights full of words and mystery… houses with a soul, eerie and warm at the same time… as a child I loved wandering around the house, pretending to be alone…listening to the sounds around me…
For that reason I chose candlelight as the only lighting source of the video. The love for words that Marleen received in her childhood reflects in this video.