The Banquet

"No one is going to take care of you. You'll have to do it yourself!"
"We all have to find our own way of defining ourselves, to figure out who we are, no?"
"You look great."
"But that must take a lot of time and effort."
"This is the best day of my life."
From the performance Le Banquet.

In the film Le Banquet, Ariane Loze gathers a set of characters around a big banquet table. She takes on all the roles herself, from cinematographer and camera operator to director and performer. Using the technique of shot/reverse shot, she makes the different guests interact with each other. They sit together waiting for something but mainly focus on themselves. Slowly but surely, the mood starts to shift and the pleasure of dining together is overshadowed by the guests' self-absorption. Le Banquet depicts the divide that social discussions can create.

Le Banquet is part of a series of videos Loze made independently. Each video is closely linked to its setting and experiments with different film codes and genres, from film noir to science fiction. In this way, the artist takes a critical look at how our social lives are structured.
In the performance of the same name – which is also part of Kanal's collection – Loze invites the audience to take a seat around a similar table and perform the twelve characters.