He came from the dark hinterland, he entered the light. Affine is looking for work, like every evening. The flashy light, saturated with garlands and rhinestones, it's Monaco, it's Christmas, it's among the super rich. In the house of white marble and arrogant glass, there is Julia.
As a pre-teen left alone by her parents, she is with Vesna, who must take care of her. Vesna and Faite, the young blonde woman and the dark-haired boy, have in common that they live on the tiny crumbs of the cake that is obscenely rich and proud of it.
What are they doing? Small jobs, escort boy or girl, call it prostitution if that reassures you, a bit of plunder surely. An extension of the great gleaming city is being built on the sea, the megamachines never stop, like dragons. An artificial city for even more luxury, eaten on the sea.
In the distance there is an island, it was Julia who said it, who saw it. You can even go there by helicopter. She talks about her life, which is made up of a lot of what Tandie dreams of. Vesna is more reasonable, which doesn't stop her from dreaming too. It tells of possible elsewhere, of possible tomorrows. And that are scary.
It is a tale in the city saturated with external signs of wealth, a tale which takes seriously the reality of materials, spaces, social relations, and which thwarts all the fictional clichés which would be supposed to result from it. In the city, the clocks sparkle, displaying the hours like a fatal countdown, which will not only be that of midnight on New Year's Eve.
It is a tale and it is the fragile, ephemeral confluence of several tales. The one that each character carries, and which he shares with his companions in a suspended time, which we call the confectioners' truce. But also the cruel tale told by the city itself, its architecture, its lighting, its construction sites, its underground passages.
E…
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