MOREL'S INVENTION
Don't be afraid.
Please, listen to me.
Don't say you have seen me...
I appeal to your generosity.
I am being pursued, but I can explain everything.
Of course, you don't care.
I won't hurt you. Please, listen...
...don't give the alarm.
I beg you, say something.
Insult me, repel me!
Give me away if you like, but don't keep silent!
...to a few hours before that evening in Biarritz?
I can't believe you anymore.
The influence of future on the past.
Don't joke!
Believe me.
No. I know what you're after...
Pity that you don't believe me, and that we can't get along...
- Pity? Why? - Because we only have 3 days.
After that it's no use.
Come on, you want to frighten me?
I didn't want to frighten you. Maybe I used the wrong tone.
We will not discuss forever.
Morel, I find you very mysterious.
No mystery.
I wasn't serious.
Rousing a woman's curiosity we make ourselves interesting.
Don't get angry.
You are hiding something from me.
Sooner or later you will confess.
I'll make you tell it.
It's not the time for ghosts. Let's go in.
- Today I did not go see. - Are you sorry?
You will see it tomorrow.
I lost your confidence.
- First you believed in me. - I can't anymore.
And if took you back to a few hours before that evening in Biarritz?
I can't believe you anymore.
The influence of the future on the past.
Don't joke!
Believe me.
No. I know what you're after...
Pity that you don't believe me, and that we can't get along...
- Pity? Why? - Because we only have 3 days.
- After that it's no use. - You want to frighten me?
I didn't want to frighten you. Maybe I used the wrong tone.
We will not discuss forever.
Morel, I find you very mysterious.
No mystery.
I wasn't serious.
Rousing a woman's curiosity we make ourselves interesting.
Don't get angry.
You are hiding something from me.
Sooner or later you will confess.
I'll make you tell it.
Why did he chose this lonesome place?
Where did Morel get the idea?
He'll have his reasons.
What are you waiting for? Dinner is ready.
Harry HP!
Because of our incapacity to see...
...the tricks of the conjurer become magic.
We always wondered about the destiny of man...
...asking the eternal question: where do we go? Where do we wait...
...like music never listened to, until we are ordered to be born?
Don't start again. Not tonight.
Can't we talk about something else?
Why? I think it's interesting. Go on, Morel.
They are right. We'll discuss it some other time...
...on a more suitable occasion.
Why don't we talk about the construction of the tennis court?
It has no sense on this island.
We're only few: the strong would always win.
But one plays for the fun of playing. Tennis is a ceremony.
It teaches how to lose with distinction.
- It trains to accept defeat. - And reveals character, doesn't it?
Specially in the double-mixed.
It slims. It's a cure against sedentary life.
One should think about it before eating.
The remedy is a good diet. Isn't it, Morel?
A diet is a cheat of the soul on the body...
...that pays back without knowing the benefits.
Don't be impatient. All right!
Look!
Excellent move.
Did you have a good trip?
Very good, a placid sea.
Did you bring everything we asked for?
- Yes, I did. - We'll join you in a second.
It's late, let's get ready.
One moment.
I have to confide something, but only to you and a few others.
Not here. Tonight. When they all sleep.
- So late? - The later the better.
Don't talk. The women must not know.
Hysteria is contagious.
See you later.
If I told you that your moves and your words are recorded?
I wouldn't mind.
Faustine, I must talk to you.
Right now?
You must listen to me.
- Let's go to the museum. - It's better here.
I am cold.
I want to talk to you away from the museum and from our friends.
It won't be all that urgent.
You are not like other women:
...you know to control your nerves.
Yes, but let's not stay plotting here.
- I feel ridiculous. - As you like.
We'll discuss tonight when they are all going...
I won't start until everybody is here.
- Jane Grey is missing. - Go and find her!
It will be difficult to bring her here.
- It's necessary. - She'll be sleeping.
- Otherwise I won't start - I'll go.
- Somebody else missing? - Yes, the usual.
Let's fetch him. I saw going in a moment ago.
- We've looked for him. - Bring him here.
Haynes is sleeping.
Let's start. Too bad for him... he can sleep.
If we go and fetch him we'll never start.
I must make a declaration.
In order not to make mistakes I decided to read it.
Listen to me.
Forgive me this scene...
...annoying at first and then terrible.
We'll forget it.
Thanks also to the nice week we have had.
I didn't want to tell you...
...so as not alarm you.
I could have used you right till the end without risking rebellion.
But as friends, you have the right to know.
My abuse as been to have photographed you without your permission.
They are not ordinary photographs, but my latest invention.
We will live in that picture, forever.
Imagine a stage.
Where our life of these 7 days was acted.
Even now we are acting.
All our acts have been recorded.
- What cheek! - It must be a joke.
It's unbearable!
I could have told you before: we will live forever.
But we would have ruined everything, trying to be gay.
I thought that to spend this week pleasantly...
...we shouldn't feel obliged to well occupy our time.
That way I have given you a pleasant eternity.
Man's works are imperfect and so is mine.
Some friends are missing: Claude, Madeleine, Leclerc...
...poor Charlie... but I have him here with me.
If you wish, you can see Charlie again.
He was my first "test".
Did you never hope...
...to give, absurdly, a perpetual reality...
...to your sentimental imaginations?
Imagining you live with a woman you cannot get?
This is the genesis of my invention.
I wanted to come here alone, with her.
She wouldn't have come if I had admitted my feelings.
If I had abducted her... we would only have quarrelled.
I don'! exaggerate.
I'll explain you my invention.
In simple terms, understandable.
You know that radio-telephony, telephone or telegraphy...
...eliminate the auditory absences.
Television and cinema eliminate the visual absences.
Now there is my invention.
The French industrialists of the Cluny have helped me...
...and the Swiss ones of the Schwachter.
Among my fellow scientists I only found diffidence.
I had to capture and transmit
waves and vibrations never reached.
I easily obtained the olfactory sensations...
...the thermic and tactile ones were more difficult.
I perfected the recording of images and sounds...
...and the system of recording voices and images.
We can smell... for instance, of our Madeleine...
...the scent of the jasmines pinned on her bosom.
Or feel on our fingers the smooth softness of her hair.
Switching all the receivers...
...we'll have before us a complete Madeleine.
Reproduced, identical!
Recorded images...
...that everybody would identify with the same living person.
My machine captures records and projects.
Always, everywhere. Day end night.
I wanted to take some scenes from here...
...to make a kind of album of pleasant moments.
I noted, during the experiments, that the persons reproduced...
...were almost conscious of themselves!
They were not without life, motionless objects.
But real... persons.
I had before me persons that were reconstituted...
...and that disappeared when turning off the projector.
They only relived the moment in which I had taken them...
...repeating themselves in infinity like passages of a record...
...or of a film that, when finished, starts a new.
If we grant conscience...
...and whatever distinguishes us from the objects, to persons...
...we must also give it the ones I created.
And when uniting all the senses, also the soul comes out.
If Madeleine was present by sight, by hearing...
...taste, smell, touch... she was "all" Madeleine.
Don't you see this is a system to reproduce life?
I did not pretend to create life...
....but I record and I project it.
How of ten were we on the point of conceiving such a destiny...
Have we not often fancied that images have a soul?
My invention confirms it.
At the beginning I had many failures.
I first tried with the employees of the Schwachter company.
I didn't warm them and took them while they were working.
Can we see them?
Why not?
I warn you: these are rather monstrous pictures.
Let's see them: they will distract us.
Yes, there have been inexplicable deceases at Schwachter...
Congratulations, we have found a believer.
Idiot, Charlie too was taken.
Those people died when Morel was there.
I have seen the photographs, I can recognize them.
You have offended him. Let's go and fetch him.
Why did you do such a thing?
- But why did you insult him? - Don't you understand?
He recorded Charlie who died!
The same happened to the employees at Schwachter's.
- And now he recorded us! - And himself!
Don't you see... that it's a joke?
He got angry!!!
He behaved badly, he could have warned us.
I'll go and see him.
I'll go. I'll apologize and ask him to continue.
He won't come. Impossible to convince him.
He left his notes, we could finish reading them.
He'll be offended.
He wanted us to know.
- He already told us everything. - Please, read.
I elaborated my plan.
You know how we discovered this island.
It had ideal conditions.
Regular lunar tides and abundant meteorological tides...
...to ensure a generally constant motive-power.
Natural landing difficulty and luminosity...
...that enables to obtain perfect images.
I bought the island and built the museum on it.
I rented the ship that brought us here and will now pick us up again.
I took care that the captain and the crew...
...would not come back here.
First I had thought to build many of these "museums"...
...that would have been like enormous albums of images.
This island is our private paradise.
Perfectly protected.
Even when leaving, we will stay here forever...
...continuing to repeat the movements of this week.
Always remaining with the conscience of each of them.
Each moment of the projection will have only the recollection...
...of the moment of recording.
And thus the future will forever maintain its attributes.
That's the end.
Dated: "Island of Caponero. July 1929."
Are you sorry you followed me to the island?
The company is pleasant but the wind...
Try to understand me.
Morel... what do you really want?
- If I told you... - I would insult you?
- That worries you? - Or we understand each other.
The days go by...
Let's use our first names?
All right. I'll have to get used to it.
I must go.
No longer suspect you: you don't love Morel, I know.
But I love your image.
If I revealed this secret...
...people would think me crazy.
And Morel would not allow me. Will he still be alive?
If so, he'll be 50 years older.
When I was worried about police-persecution...
...the images of this island... like chess-men...
...moved as if about to catch me.
I must convince myself that I don't need to escape.
The images frighten me.
But they protect me.
I can never leave again.
The trip is unrepeatable. The boat is all rotted.
I cannot rebuild it.
One sees no ships...
...only yours...
...that doesn't exist.
The walls are projections!
I'll turn the engines off to pull them down!
And if they were recorded?
If they were projections... ghost of engines?
Forgive me this scene...
...annoying at first, and then terrible.
We'll forget it.
If Madeleine was present by sight, by hearing...
...taste, smell, touch... she was "all" Madeleine.
Don't you see this is a system to reproduce life?
I did not pretend to create life...
...but I record and I project it.
How of ten were we on the point of conceiving such a destiny?
Didn't we suppose that the images themselves had a soul?
My invention confirms it.
In the beginning I had many failures.
I first tried with the employees of the Schwachter company.
I didn't warn them and took them while they were working.
Don't you understand? He recorded Charlie who died!
The same happened to the employees at Schwachter's.
And now he recorded us!
Come inside, we were foolish. Sorry.
Stoever is an idiot. The others are a bunch of funks.
Try to understand them: what you have told us is upsetting.
So it was for me, but I didn't think of the dangers.
Why... this idea?
A nice group portrait.
The first idea was better: me alone with Faustine.
Faustine? Now I get it.
You didn't.
It would have been nicer, but less sincere.
I would have played the part of the suitor...
...and she of the flattered woman who resists out of pride.
I wanted a complete image of us, not a sentimental duel.
Who will see it? Who will use it?
Maybe we will.
Maybe we will see again, I thought... our happy years.
I have abused you, making use of your conscience...
...but it was worth it.
We were sure, confident, reasonable and happy.
We believe that this happiness could last forever.
But it is ending.
Once gone things change.
The immortality I gave you was the only way to protract...
...these care-free days.
You should tell the others.
There is nothing more to tell.
At last!
The tides have come: I was worried their course had changed.
I've started recording.
I'll be with you forever, in this rotating week.
Maybe even in the sky of your conscience.
At last!
The tides have come: I was worried their course had changed.
I've started recording.
I'll be with you forever, in this rotating week.
Maybe even in the sky of your conscience.
A diet is a cheat of the soul on the body...
...that pays back without knowing the benefits.
Did you have a good trip?
Very good, a placid sea.
Did you bring everything we asked for?
Yes, I did.
Maybe we will see again, I thought... our happy years.
I have abused you making use of your conscience.
But it was worth it?
We were sure, confident, reasonable and happy.
We believed that this happiness could last forever.
But it is ending.
Once gone things change.
This immortality was the only way to protract...
...these care-free days.
Dated: "Island of Caponero. July 1929."