Reflective Encounters

“Viewed almost exclusively from the vertiginous vantage point of an office block in Paris’s La Défense financial district, A Quiet Man’s focus is on not one but two individuals: Vincent Blanchot, who is constantly observed from on high but only heard briefly via his voicemail greeting midway through the film, and Pierre, whom we hear but never see. Amidst the quotidian sounds of the office activity happening around him, the latter becomes ever more distracted and fascinated by the activities (or lack thereof) of the former, and what begins as a mixture of bafflement and concern on Pierre’s part comes to resemble more closely a voyeuristic obsession.

Pierre’s mental state is reflected in the film’s changing visual style – from clear, objective long shots to subjective, frantic camera movements and tighter, grainier close-ups, before departing into a more expressionistic reverie-like fantasia. Blanchot, like Melville’s Bartleby, seems to the spectator at once aimless and strangely liberated; how much of what Pierre sees in him is a manifestation of both projected wish-fulfilment and his subconscious fears about his own sense of alienation? ”

— Jonathan Bygraves