Le Cinquième Quartier
Jean-Baptiste Alazard
2008 - 53 min - DV Cam - Couleur - France

In a factory of slaughter of cattle in the south of France, "The offal" tries to seize a changing know-how, the mechanization of a traditional gesture (the killing and cutting of an animal) to meet the requirements of contemporary productivity.
Through futurist installations, a hand camera tries to capture the movement of the men who get the machines going. But we can wonder who imposes his rate: is it really the worker or the metallic arm of the machine?
In turn, the different sectors of the factory chase one another and mix up in a parallel assembly, organizing the ballet around the meat. The different stages of the processing answer one another and show the perpetual motion which makes the meat totally lifeless.
Progressively sticking to the heaviness and agility of bodies working the flesh to an abstraction which refuses the organic, the offal is seeking for non-existent remnants of the sacrified animal ceremonial. This absence is a question for a society constructed on the denial of death.