What is Grand Vide?
The project is based on the guideline of Dogma95. The german photographer Andreas Gerhardt was inspired by the thoughts it contained. Bonjour Tristesse is the first story of episodes that are still open in serveral parts. Detailed information on the idea can be found on the communiqué page.
Bonjour Tristesse
Long lonely beaches and the vastness of the sea fill the traveller with romantic emptiness. Who ever stayed at the Atlantic Ocean, will never stop longing for this laziness, elegance and nonchalance. A positive, self-absorbed tristesse. You can find yourself and then the sophisticated opulence.
Cities such as Deauville and Trouville-sur-mer in the Calvados department were and still are today the meeting point of the Haut-Volée and the pearls of a bygone era. Trouville was once an idyllic fishing village for holiday guests seeking originality and solitude. Then it became the “Queen of the Beaches”, bathing in the sea became fashionable.
Deauville, since always the fashionable seaside resort, then and now loved by the rich and beautiful, the Jeunesse dorée for its subtle decadence. The noble neo-romantic holiday villas, the casino and the racecourses La Touques and Clairfontaine are places of fading elegance.
La plage – the beach
The summer is spent on the infinitely wide, almost empty fine sandy beaches. These were once the impressionist Eugene Boudin’s favourite motifs. The colourful parasols and beach chairs are typical of Deauville. You can stroll along the famous Promenade des Planches, along the small changing rooms, which are named after movie stars. It was the artists’ catwalk. Celebrities and movie stars such as Yves Saint Laurent, Maurice Chevalier, Josephine Baker, Jean Gabin, Liz Taylor, Gary Grant and Omar Sharif spent the summer in Deauville.
La mer – the ocean
The air is salty, the spindrift is refreshing as only found here on the Atlantic Ocean. You listen to the surf and enjoy the wide silence. Careless summer, laissez-faire, you feel the salt on your skin and the sand under your feet. At low tide, the sea is almost unattainable and yet so close to dive.
The special light, it inspired already Peter Lindbergh to the beautiful photos with Tatjana Patitz. Naked at the empty sandy beach of Deauville, pictures in black and white, these are the days that shall not pass by.
Ç’est vrai
Deauville and Trouville still exude the charm of the 1960s. Sitting in one of the many cafés or restaurants along the little alleys, makes you feel like you are back to the time when Coco Chanel was creating trousers and sweaters in her little shop behind the casino. The ladies wore the fashion “à la garconne” at the horse races. Close your eyes and see the smart dressed society walking by.
Une petite Histoire d’amour
In Paris, after a week fashion shows of the city, then the agency calls for a shooting in any fishing village on the Atlantic. And yet there is this longing for to the glitter and the parties, though thirsty for silence. Days of inaction were planned, having a good time with friends and Alain. Now in the train, bonjour Tristesse.
Linda works as a model and is booked for a small photo production. She has to go to Trouville. It is the sense of duty that makes her travel, and yet the longing remains when she has to leave. In between, the magic unreality of this place captures her. Did this encounter really happen?
