Vloof l’aigrette – Pain de singe. 1987. France. Directed by Teo Hernández. Super 8 mm transferred to 16 mm. Courtesy Mnam/Cci Centre Pompidou. 4 min.
Created as an accompaniment to a theatrical show, Vloof l’aigrette – Pain de singe is a brief collaboration with dancer Bernardo Montet, who performs in drag for the camera. “Bernardo Montet dances for us. What a revelation! Beyond all my hopes. He is the ideal performer, the one I dreamed of. He brings together power and grace. And that ineffable gift of gesture” (Teo Hernández).
Salomé. 1976–82. France. Directed by Teo Hernández. Super 8 mm transferred to 16 mm. Courtesy Mnam/Cci Centre Pompidou. 65 min.
In his first feature film, Teo Hernández takes on the gospel story of Salome with a high camp aesthetic, midway between Mexican iconography and gay glitter. Largely shot in the filmmaker’s apartment, the film suspends veils, pearls, bodies, and sparkling objects in a black, depthless field where gesture becomes pure emanation. Color, light, and variations of projection speed replace dramaturgy; bodies drift, wrap, veil, unveil, and dissolve, as boleros pulse against the image rather than comment on it. Desire presides over a world poised between ascetic severity and baroque excess. “The veil is a screen between the spectator and the object. The veil erases, the veil hides, the veil prevents from reaching the object, that which is desired, the reality. You always have to lift the veil to know what is behind it. It is different from the mask. The mask is a substitute. Perhaps the mask is a form of veil” (Teo Hernández).