The Scissors (2003)

Always concerned with freedom of expression, which for him is essential, mounir fatmi also considers sex, and does so with great delicacy. To make this jewel of a film, fatmi edited together censored love scenes (literally cut with scissors) from Une minute de soleil en moins. With Les Ciseaux, fatmi has produced a threefold work of memory: first of all, he preserves Ayouch’s original film, to keep it from being forgotten; secondly, he delivers a frontal critique of censorship, to keep that too from being forgotten; and thirdly, it is a discourse on love, to keep us from forgetting. Furthermore, in Les Ciseaux fatmi achieves a juxtaposition or, rather, a shifting between bodily embraces and the dreams that go with them. The memory of the lovers plays the role of the video maker, and in Les Ciseaux we go from intertwining bodies to inner images.