Merlin Dutertre, Les Fantômes Rêvent Aussi, digital video, color, sound, 7’ 34”, 2018, France
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PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️
VRAL is currently showcasing Merlin Dutertre’s Lullaby (2019). In order to better appreciate his oeuvre, we will be discussing several of his most recent works. We begin with Lullaby’s predecessor, Les Fantômes Rêvent Aussi (2018). Taken together, the two films are aesthetically and thematically conjoined, forming a unique diptych.
French filmmaker Merlin Dutertre crafts introspective machinima works set in serene, dreamlike forest environments. His found footage film Les Fantômes Rêvent Aussi (2018), which we are presenting today, unfolds in a lush virtual forest meticulously designed using Zoo Tycoon 2, a popular 2004 business simulation game where players manage a zoo. Developed by Blue Fang Games and released in 2004, Zoo Tycoon 2 was highly popular, selling over three million copies worldwide. Its longevity is remarkable: nearly twenty years after release, it still has an active modding community. In the game, players are tasked with creating and managing a successful zoo by building enclosures, keeping animals happy, and maintaining the park grounds. Not exactly what John Berger had envisioned, but anyway.
Interestingly, Zoo Tycoon 2 is not a popular choice for making machinima. Nevertheless, Dutertre deliberately chose this game due to its remarkable creative adaptability in the construction of lifelike environments and its user-friendly tools, which seamlessly facilitated the customization of landscapes and animal behaviors in alignment with his creative vision. Zoo Tycoon 2’s capacity for animating autonomously animals gave his project an authentic documentary-style essence. Notwithstanding its somewhat anachronistic graphics, the game’s accessible and familiar interface ensured Dutertre’s adept filmmaking, allowing him to work with…
Matteo Bittanti
Works cited
Merlin Dutertre
Les Fantômes Rêvent Aussi, digital video, color, sound, 7’ 34”, 2018, France
Lullaby, digital video, color, sound, color, sound, 11’ 51”, 2019, France
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