We Had the Day Bonsoir (2022)

An act of love, the portrait of a painter, an ode to life... We had the day bonsoir is all these things. "It's in the sound of an ending that the music of the living is played, of which we are all, wherever we're present, an invented note." These are Narimane Mari's words to describe the film made in tribute to her late partner, the painter Michel Hass. As the notes of Amor Amor by Norie Paramor resonate across the opening images - water lit by twilight - names scroll across the screen, the names of people, living or dead, unknown or well-known, whose presence and voices populate this cosmic film. Mari puts together fragments of life gleaned over the years, during films or wandering the streets, and makes them dance with the images of her accomplice. Michel Haas' mischievous gaze is echoed by those of strangers picked up on a Parisian boulevard, and his body as he works by the bodies of Loubia Hamra's children bathing in the Mediterranean, his tender speech by the languid voice of Elvis Presley. In this way, Mari continues the painter's conversation with the world. She builds a refuge to shelter his creatures, sculpted animals and other characters made of paper, letting them cohabit with their companions in life, in thought and in music. Between the silences, spaces for remembrance, seeps the breeze of words from loving gestures - reminiscing about happy memories, calling each other to describe them, recounting them in voice messages. The director thus creates an intimate dialogue that goes beyond death, enhancing the poetic operation by superimposing some of the words onto the image as subtitles or set out like poems, like the notes in a musical score that sing the music of the living. A veritable love song, We had the day bonsoir offers thanks to the exuberant vitality of Michel Haas, an inexhaustible source of life for Narimane Mari and for us.