“If there is horro, it is for those who speak indifferently of the next war. If there is hate, it is for hateful qualities, not nations. if there is love, it is because this alone kept me alive. – Claude Cahun”

This is Barbara Hammer’s film to unfold the story of Claude Cahun and her sister and lover, Marcel Moore. It starts from this quote, and continues “my mother divorced my father and married to Suzanne’s father. Suzanne is my sister and lover. We left home to Jersey Isle to spend rest of lives.” In short description, we already know they were in the complex relationship and had a unusual place to build their lives together.

Film is experimental, Hammer puts narration, pictures, moving words, actors, documentary clips, sounds mixed together and almost scattered all this elements across the duration. Compelling artist and photographer, Cahun’s material is tantalising itself, but it is also fun to see how Hammer intervenes and interact with the artist’s material.

Hammer focuses on their relationship and how they inspired each other more than the Cahun’s life itself. So we learn Marcel (Suzanne) as a person, who was a great supporter and lifelong partner for Cahun. Hammer tracks down neighbours of Cahun and Marcel and interview them.

Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob (Claude Cahun, 1894 -1954)
Suzanne Malherbe (Marcel Moore, 1892 – 1972)

More Readings;

Clude Cahun Biography at Guerrilla Girls Broadband

Disavowals or Cancelled Confessions (The MIT Press, Illustrated book, April 2008)

Cluade Cahun webpage (bibliography, photography)