Graffiti from page to screen

The first publication of the short story of Julio Cortazar, Graffiti, coincided with that of the exhibition catalogue dedicated to Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona in 1978. The writer, born in 1914 in Belgium from Argentinean parents, created Graffiti starting from the drawings of Tàpies, a Catalan painter fond of abstract graphics. Later integrated into We love Glenda so much (1989), in 1999 Graffiti was the subject of a first cinematic adaptation: Alexandre Aja took inspiration from it for his feature film Furia, a suspense thriller featuring Stanislas Mehrar and Marion Cotillard. Young Georgian filmmaker Vano Burdili is now offering a new version in a shorter format.

In Graffiti (the short story), a man falls in love with a woman without ever having seen her. In a town without a name where the militia police oversee all, in a total absence of freedom, the man and woman draw on the walls and defy the rules together. Two innocent beings, whose chalk mouths cry out their hope through abstract and interposed sketches. One evening, things start to go badly for her: a prison van, incarceration, torture. The other gets drunk, doodles and waits. Her freedom regained, she heals her wounds through writing. And on paper, their voices, their “you”s, finally fuse together.

In his medium length film, Vano Burdili brings to the screen the story of a young painter-photographer and a young writer forced into silence in a grey town under heavy surveillance. The childlike chalks have become paint bombs bought on the black market. Both visually and in terms of sound, the absurdity of the dictatorial mechanism is strong. Their urgent urge to paint on the walls, their shared desire, is just as palpable onscreen, against a soundtrack of free jazz and a brutal soundtrack. The transposition is inventive, even if the poetic fever of the short story is not a complete success.

Emilie Padellec