Following Flaubert

Overview

At the age of 18, Gustave Flaubert travelled to Corsica in the late summer of 1840 accompanied by Dr Cloquet, a friend of his parents. Flaubert recorded his impressions of the trip in a notebook. This film attempts to follow these annotations, which form the backdrop to the story and provide a link with present-day Corsica. The mix of black and white historical photographs and colour images taken with a camera obscura, together with sound, show the different places Flaubert visited. The filmed sequences bear witness to the reality of today's island and its inhabitants. Gustave Flaubert's memories coincide with the everyday life of Corsica today. The camera has researched the places he visited on his journey, met the inhabitants, as Flaubert did in his time, and is trying to determine whether his impressions of the time are still valid.