Cousin Jules

Jules is a blacksmith and lives on a small farm in the French countryside. He and his wife Félicie have kept the same order for many years. The film records their daily work: the forge, the anvil, the garden, the cooking, the table. The account builds no events and contains almost no talk. The camera follows the work from beginning to end, and the rhythm is the rhythm of the work. In time how fragile that order is becomes visible too. The film stands as a kind of elegy to rural France and to the everyday. The ninety one minutes came out of filming spread over years. Jules and Félicie Guiteaux appear in Dominique Benicheti’s French documentary, completed in 2013.