The most beautiful achievement of Jan Eilhardt's film is its apprehension- a realization that when one seeks to portray disabled and sick people in film one CANNOT pretend to fully understand. Rather than holding open a door with an affected gaze- a door the sick and disabled can open themselves- one encounters them with an empathetic helplessness. J.E. regards his characters in the manner of Jean Cocteau who demanded that his artworks above all astound and astonish him. Proceeding from this demand and fulfilling it, J.E. creates or discovers a kind of open form in which his filmic gaze, following its characters in quasi-documentary mode, endows them with a freedom that in turn radiates throughout the film. J.E. is moved, but not in the manner of a mothering do- gooder who addresses himself to the less fortunate. He is much more like an attentively observant painter who is entirely impressed and possessed by his object. Only at that stage does his painting begin, not earlier. J.E. has created an artwork that enters an unknown land, the land of the sick and disabled, without ever colonizing it.
Review of The Court of Shards
