Franck Thilliez - Syndrome E

“Is this the original copy?”

“Oh, no, no. The original, what comes out of the camera, is exposed on film as a negative, just like a photograph. Here you’ve got the positive print, what the eye sees. You always work with positives, which also act as a backup copy. This way, you can cut them up and manipulate them without worrying.”

He advanced the film by cranking a handle. On the screen they saw, at the bottom of the strip, the word “S Å F E T Y.”

“This word written on the leader, ‘safety,’ indicates that the support of the emulsion is acetate, so no danger. Until the fifties, it was still mainly nitrate, which is flammable. You surely remember the scene where Philippe Noiret catches fire inside the projection booth in Cinema Paradiso , because he opens a canister containing a reel of nitrate film. Mythic.”

Lucie nodded, though she’d never seen that film. Italian classics weren’t really her style, unlike American thrillers of the 1950s, which she devoured with a passion.

“The black dot just above the A shows that the film stock was manufactured in Canada. It’s the international symbol used by Kodak.”

Canada… Ludovic had said he’d unearthed the reel in the attic of some Belgian collector. And today, that same reel turned up in France. These anonymous films must have had the same life as collectible stamps or coins, traveling from country to country. Lucie filed away in her mind that she should perhaps question the collector’s son, if it turned out to be worth it. She had to admit that this minor investigation, undertaken for personal reasons and off the books, was starting to excite her. Claude seemed to tap into her thoughts.

“These films travel and get lost. More than fifty percent of the productions from before World War II have disappeared. Can you imagine? And among them are some pure masterpieces that are now probably rotting in some attic. Films by Méliès, Chaplin, a ton of John Fords as well.”

“Do we know when this one is from?”

Claude Poignet turned the handle. When the very first image appeared, completely black with the white circle, he showed her the bottom of the strip. Lucie noticed the presence of two symbols, and , just above the sprocket holes, like numbers.

“Kodak used a code composed of geometric figures to date its filmstrips. They reused the same code every twenty years.”

He handed Lucie a laminated sheet, a kind of specifications chart.

“Look at this grid. The cross and the square show that the positive was printed either in 1935, 1955, or 1975. Given the condition of the film and the actress’s outfit in the opening scenes, this is definitely from the year 1955.” He jabbed his index finger at the screen. “This number, here, which shows up every twenty frames, is what we call the key code. It identifies the manufacturer—Kodak in this case—the type of film, the serial number of the roll, and a four-digit suffix that individualizes each frame. In short, one could know where and when this roll of film came out of the lab. However, I can guarantee you from the outset that you’ll get nowhere with these numbers—it goes back too far, and chances are, as things go, that the original lab no longer exists.”

He stared at Lucie with a satisfied look. His glasses considerably enlarged his eyeballs. Lucie smiled back at him.

“Shall we deal with the content?”

The man’s face darkened. He immediately lost his good humor.

“I should have said so at the start, but this film is the work of a genius and a psychopath. Both united in the same twisted mind.”

Lucie felt excitement grow within her; she couldn’t help it. In the middle of her vacation, she found herself in the rear corner of a workshop, tipping into the same sordid world that she encountered every day in the squad room.

“In other words?”

“There are images in here that are… disturbing, to say the least. You must have felt it deep within yourself, without really understanding why.”

“Yes. A feeling of unease. Especially the scene with the eye at the beginning, which gives you chills right from the get-go.”

“Pure special effects, of course. The sliced eye is from an animal, maybe a dog. But that scene mainly shows that the eye, in itself, is just a common sponge that soaks up images, a smooth surface that doesn’t understand meanings. And that, in order to see better, you have to pierce that smooth surface. Go past it. Get inside the film…”

Claude Poignet turned the handle until he could show under the loupe the image of a completely naked woman. Well-endowed bust, provocative pose—it was the same actress from the beginning of the film, the one who had her eye slit. She was standing in a dark décor, with little contrast. On this still image, dozens of hands jutted out from behind to grope her curves and her sex. You couldn’t see the actors, who must have been dressed all in black, like the onstage accomplices of a magician. The restorer then nudged the film forward one frame by moving the handle. They returned immediately to the little girl, sitting on her swing. Her face was now in the exact place of the woman’s, to the centimeter.

“The twenty-fifth frame, as they say, though here it would be more like the fifty-first. The movie’s crammed full of them. It dates from 1955, even though the subliminal process was officially used for the first time in 1957, by James Vicary, an American publicist. I have to admit, it’s pretty impressive.”

Lucie knew the principle behind subliminal images. They flashed by so quickly that your eye didn’t have time to notice them, even though your brain had “seen” them. The cop recalled that François Mitterrand had used the technique in 1988. The face of the presidential candidate had appeared in the credits of the evening news, but not long enough for viewers to perceive it consciously.

“So the man who made this movie was a precursor?”

“Someone very gifted, in any case. The great Georges Méliès had invented everything by way of special effects and image manipulation, but not subliminals. And let’s not forget this was the fifties, when our knowledge of the brain and the impact of images on the mind was still fairly primitive. A friend of mine works in neuromarketing—I’ll give you his address. On top of which, I’m going to show him this film, if it’s all right with you. With the equipment he’s got, he might be able to find some interesting things that my eyes missed.”

“Absolutely, please do.”

Poignet rummaged through a basket filled with business cards.

“Here, this is his card, just in case. He can tell you about subliminal images better than I can—the brain, imagery, its impact on the mind. Do you realize how much they manipulate us today, without our even being aware of it? Do you have children?”

Lucie’s features softened.

“Yes. Twin girls, Clara and Juliette. They’re eight.”

“So you’ve probably already shown them Bernard and Bianca— The Rescuers .”

“Like every other mom.”

“That cartoon contains a subliminal image of a naked woman hiding in a window, at one point. A small personal quirk of the animator’s, no doubt. Don’t worry, it won’t have any effect on your children’s minds—the image is too tiny! The fact remains that no one ever saw it, in all the years that cartoon was being shown.”

The conversation was turning dubious. Lucie stared at the image of the nude starlet. Provocative, open. A pure scandal for the time.

“How did the director insert subliminal images in his film?”