A distant wood thrush is singing against the pitch-black backdrop of the image. A fly acoustically approaches with a massive, bass-heavy hum, abruptly stopped in its flight by the sound of a crash. Sounds so familiar that we are usually not even aware of them provided the main sonic material for the renowned sound designer Claude Beaugrand. His long-standing artist friend, filmmaker Pierre Hébert, dedicated his five animated fugues to him. Field recordings like those of the bird and insect derive their vitality from their recognisability through repetition, as well as from their ephemeral nature, with its random inflections and variations. Hébert forms a sonic body through stretching, echo loops and granulated sounds. And he scratches directly onto the film material, working against the physical resistance of the emulsion. Each “brushstroke” created this way has an unpredictable, intuitive element. Each powerful or tender graphic gesture radiates vitality. Just as the thrush and the fly meet acoustically, abstract bundles of lines flutter nervously on the surface of the screen and into its depth, circling the pared-down silhouette of a human being in free fall. Intertitles lyrically describe a pain that must be expressed but for which there are no direct words. “Prelude and Fugues – The Wood Thrush” is an indescribable experience of choreographed sounds, an inner cinema born of the delicate essence of animation and the irresistible enticement to listen intently.

André Eckardt