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Matinee: 'Barbara Thollot's Revêrie'
17 May 2025
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 604th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Barbara Thollot's Revêrie.
In this 3":13 video, we follow (at a warm, comfortable distance) photographer Barbara Thollot as she wanders the Alps in winter to explore "the landscapes of her inner solitude through a visual and sensory journey where dream and poetry shape a suspended reality."
On her Web site, she says, "I've had my head in the clouds since I was little. I spend a lot of time dreaming." She continues, "I tried to correct this defect all my life, and then I discovered photography. So it became obvious: Daydreaming is my vocation, my reason for being."
She left everything behind at the age of 27, bought an Alpine cottage and, despite not knowing how to ski, "I choose to fully immerse myself in this place that attracts me so much, the mountain."
It paid off, as the video shows. She's spent 1o years on this adventure, joined by "two little blondes and my husband."
You'll want to watch it twice, once with subtitles (unless you know French) and once without that distraction so you can fall into her images full screen.
They are captivating shots. Mostly captured at the moment when the mist clears. "I really love that moment when the mist opens up," she says. "Everything is elevated. The light is perfect, divine."
But the opening sequences, distant shots of her making her way along the Alps on her cross-country skies set more than the scene. They set the reflective mood of her work, which explains the attraction of the mists clearing.
And her determination to follow her "reason for being."