SHINHEE PARK
Attila Marcel
a French film by Sylvain Chomet
Concept Design (2023)
Time : 1980s
Place : Paris, France
Genre : Drama
Synopsis
Paul lives in a Paris apartment with his eccentric aunts who have raised him
since the death of his parents when he was a toddler. Now thirty-three, he still does not speak.
Paul's aunts have only one dream for him: to win piano competitions. Although Paul practices dutifully,
he remains unfulfilled until he submits to the interventions of his upstairs neighbor.
Suitably named after the novelist, Madame Proust offers Paul a concoction that unlocks repressed memories from his childhood and awakens the most delightful of fantasies.
In Search of Lost Time (1913)
a original novel by French author Marcel Proust
The novel follows the narrator's recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century high-society France, while reflecting on the loss of time and lack of meaning in the world. The novel had great influence on twentieth-century literature; some writers have sought to emulate it, others to parody it. American author Edmund White pronounced In Search of Lost Time "the most respected novel of the twentieth century."
"We are able to find everything
in our memory, which is like a dispensary
where, at random, we pick
a soothing drug or a dangerous poison."
Marcel Proust
Characters
Paul
He suffers from mutism since a terrible accident that happened to his parents and repeats the same routine every day with his twin aunts.
Twin Aunts
They lack flexibility and try to control Paul's life by forcing him
to win the piano competition which was once their dream.
Madame Proust
She owns a secret garden and heals people's minds with herbal tea and Madeleine. She is also a Buddhist who is free from formalities.
Mood
Circus / Surveilance / Manipulate
Emotional Response - Painting
Hieronymus Bosch, <Garden of Earthly Delights>, 1490-1500, Grisaille, Oil on Oak Panel.
<Flower of unconsciousness>, 2023, 60x90cm, Acrylics on paper.
The work was established under the theme of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis.
I painted thinking of Paul, who was immersed in the unconsciousness.
The theme of interbreeding is influenced by a quattrocento-century artist Hieronymus Bosch's <Garden of Earthly Delights>. I combined mushrooms, fungi, marine life, and flowers into one to create a strange and beautiful shape, which will exist in the world of unconsciousness, where things that cannot be explained in language stay. Bosch painted the work to stand out in vivid blue, focusing on the fact that vivid colors are considered images of life, especially blue as material management of the universe. For a more surreal touch, the shape was distorted using an iPad and then painted on the canvas.
Structure
The characters were analyzed in three stages: Superego, Ego, and Id in Sigmund Freud's personality theory (1923).
In addition, Paul's house and Madame Proust's garden were divided into three stages:
The Conscious Mind, The Preconscious Mind, and The Unconscious Mind.
Paul & Twin Aunts' House
(1st Floor)
Reference
Circus / Puppter Show / Stage / Symmetry / Manipulate / Mid-century
The first floor is a space of the twin aunts who manipulate Paul's life, so it is designed in a symmetrical form to reflect elaborate and obsessive characteristics. With the dining room and Paul's piano in the center, there are aunts' rooms on both sides. The furniture in the aunts' room and other rooms were all paired up to give a bizarre feeling.
Floor Design
I designed a floor carpet reminiscent of a circus because I thought Paul's life,
which is passively living according to his aunts' coercive care, was like a circus or a puppet show.
3D Model
Used Software: SketchUp & V-ray
I designed the set thinking of a directing that the camera follows Paul horizontally,
creating marionettes and puppets-like scenes while Paul moves as the twin aunts play the piano.
Paul & Twin Aunts' House (Basement)
Reference
Surveilance / Gaze / Circus / Décalcomanie / Painting / Destroyed
Paul's room is always watched by his aunts.
Aunts can come down to Paul's room through two stairs from the living room upstairs at any time.
Also located in the center, Paul's bed is on a round plate.
It is designed to show the shape of an eye viewed from the top with toy train tracks on both sides.
Décalcomanie
Language is the most important factor in structuring human thinking, and Paul can't speak because of his childhood shock. The absence of the mother, the main caregiver, and the change of the caregiver did not provide adequate emotional stimulation, so he did not develop language and acted compulsively. Social development is also sluggish because there was no social interaction with others except for the twin aunts.
Visual takes precedence over language.
Freud said that art is a form of sublimation, and that suppressed mental events in childhood form the human unconscious. Signs of the repressed desires and fantasies deep inside the mind coming out into the conscious world are like compulsive behavior and tics. I wanted to express such signs in the wallpaper of Paul's room.
As an autistic behavior, I set the setting to draw a symmetrical form of painting.
It is also said that the appearance of early infants is similar to the form of psychopathy.
I expressed Paul's painting through Décalcomani, a technique that young children use when they first learn art.
I hope these paintings, which also remind us of insects like butterflies, show Paul's pure inner self.
The walls of both sides of the room represented twin aunts who constantly monitored and controlled Paul
by representing the same type of design in different colors and brightness.
This is the basement where Paul used to live with his mom and dad.
After Paul's memory has been erased, Paul is staying in the middle room with the other room blocked with walls.
The outside of Paul's room remains the same as it was 30 years ago when the accident occurred.
Paul lives with hidden memories in his unconscious.
Madame Proust's Secret Garden
Madame Proust's secret garden is located on the top floor of the building.
The setting of Buddhism and serving herbal tea with crops grown by herself was also expressed through props.
The mandala is the fundamental structure of the universe, which means the constantly repeated principle of creation of the universe. It includes a multi-spreading concentric circle and a whirlwind structure that converges around it. When dividing the garden, a mandala shape was used. A table where Madame Proust's consultation is conducted was placed in the center concentric area.
Reference
Mysterious / Beguiling / Calming / Healing / Lotus / Mandala / Buddhism / Herbs
In this story, which tells the process of adults with trauma overcoming it and growing through memory recovery, Madame Proust's Secret Garden is a space for healing and growth.
Despite being a cancer patient, Madame Proust warms and cares for the mentally hurt people.
That's why I wanted there to be warmth and tenderness in the space.
