L'expédition Mékong | The Mekong Expediton (Teaser)
by Remi Morel
Teaser of 'L'expédition du Mékong, Carnet d'Exploration', a 52 mn film about the Doudart de Lagrée-Garnier navigation up north the 'Grand River'.
Published: 2017
Author: Remi Morel
Languages : English, French
Working from Francis Garnier’s Journal, filmmaker Remi Morel retraces the adventures of ‘La Mission Mékong’ (1866−1868), this group of French Navy captains, geographers, doctors and botanists led by Doudart de Lagrée upriver to discover the mighty Mekong River.
With the help of Cambodian, Vietnamese and Laotian technicians, the author follows the steps of these fearless explorers from Cambodia and Angkor to Laos and the Yunnan mountains. The making of the 52 mn docudrama can be followed here.
- A Cascadeprod production.
- Remi Morel’s Gradiva 2016 is a ‘filmic fantasy’ in which an archaelogist in Angkor indulges in reveries about the apsaras (and their feet in particular), a mysterious female apparition amongst the ruins, and the origins of sacred dance (with an homage to Satyajit Ray’s mythical movie, The Music Room). “It’s a filmic musing on an Asian Gradiva”, recalls the director who, like the author of the famous novel (Whilelm Jensen in 1903) and the not-less famous interpretation by Sigmund Freud, explores here the ‘fetishization of desire’.
Tags: Mekong River, Mekong Mission, dance, French explorers
About the Author
Remi Morel
Remi Morel is a documentary producer and film director specialized in cultural and history films.
Director of audiovisual resources at La Villette Science Museum (Paris) and coordinator of the series Dynamo for the French-German cultural channel ARTE, screenwriter awarded by the European Script Fund, Remi Morel has worked in Asia during the last nine years, in particular on his documentary about the Mekong Expedition.
He spent a part of his childhood in Laos, where his father, Jean Morel, developed educational and topographical programs for UNESCO. Jean Morel was also an amateur filmographer, and some of his footage from the 1960s has been recently purchased by the Hong Kong Museum of Art.