Walking, writing, and writing from walking.

I got sucked into this mesmerizing video essay by Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López, a montage of the walkers that move through Philippe Garrel’s films. The essay traces the arc of the Garrelian story—the elements of that loosely autobiographical “novel” which he endlessly takes up in different configurations, from different angles—through the juxaposition of his walkers.

As captioned by MUBI:

People alone, brooding or dazed; encounters with a passer-by on the street, seemingly casual but forever life-changing; the romantic couple, walking forward with the camera, or off into the distance and the future, like in a Charlie Chaplin movie; and the “holy family” of man, woman, and child all together, no matter by what strange, fortuitous, or circuitous path that trio may have come to be formed.

Watch “Garrel’s Walkers” with sound.

Then watch it without sound.

Put on some music (preferably without lyrics) and get your notebook. Watch the video as one might watch people passing on a street and write what you see.

Tell the stories that appear.

Note the pauses where walking ceases: place a “(rest)” in those areas of your notes.

Then go back and make a list of what each rest indicates—- or what is at stake in each rest. Is the trajectory of that rest inscribed in the next instant, or does the trajectory reach far into the future? What color does a rest evoke? What background noise situates the different rest in relation to what the walkers might later remember of it, if they look back?