“Des Yeux Partout” by Caroline Cuénod to be screened Thursday 25th April at the Théâtre de Marens at 14:30 and Friday 26th at 14:15 at the Capitole 1
At the start of this film we see Clarissa looking down on to the the rooftops of Geneva from her apartment, she is happy to be high up as she does not like to be overlooked by anyone. She cannot stand to be constantly observed by CCTV cameras when she is on the ground and is obsessed with them. In her quest to record all the CCTV cameras that she knows exist in Geneva, she marks them all down in details on an enlarged map of the city.
She reads in a newspaper article that there are 1,358 cameras but she personally believes there are many, many more. She is keen to know what happens to all the footage that might have images of her on it, but she can’t find an answer. She travels to Monaco, where in seemingly every street she find herself being watched by cameras. She makes a trip to Middlesborough, a city in the UK which has “talking” CCTV cameras. Operators of the cameras can give out orders through the speakers to any street “offender”. She looks up at the camera and shouts “Hello”. The operator of the camera replies back “Woman in the green coat and purple scarf, please move on”. A telling and Big Brotherish moment in the film, which bothers her but when she speaks to passers by and asks them if they mind being under constant surveillance, none of them seems to, saying the cameras are a “necessary evil” to further reduce street crime.
Back in Switzerland Clarissa heads off to the mountains to the area where she was born and reveals that the reason she left in the first place was because she felt it was too small a community and every body knew her business and she was being “watched”. Now high up in the Alps and free from CCTV cameras she feels at her happiest.
Although this film tackles a modern day issue, the pervasiveness of CCTV cameras in cities today, it doesn’t really answer too many questions and Cuenod the film maker doesn’t delve too deep for answers. Nevertheless this film is thought- provoking in its own way and including scenes from Geneva, makes for an interesting documentary in the “Helvetique” category of the Visions du Réel film festival.