The life of French philosopher and activist Simone Weil was short, and as the thinker died of tuberculosis in her mid-30s, virtually unknown to many. But as director Julia Haslett argues in her documentary An Encounter with Simone Weil, Weil’s impact has left a profound and even haunting impression on her followers.
Chief among the disciples of Weil’s school of thought is Haslett herself, and Encounter is above all else a deeply personal search for truth in that worldview and how those beliefs pertain to and inform Haslett’s relationships with her father and brother, both of whom struggled with severe depression and anxiety. Haslett’s approach is often circular, beginning with her own family and spiraling outward to political science professors and even Weil’s own relatives. Using a quote from Weil as her philosophical bumper sticker (that “attention is rarest and purest form of generosity”), Haslett doesn’t always connect the unexpected answers from her subjects to global suffering or her father’s own suicide, but her admitted naivete provides an endpoint to a seemingly impossible quest for understanding.
Little more than a jigsaw of archival photos, wartime newsreels, and shaky handicam, the low-rent production value works in favor of what is essentially Haslett’s elaborate diary entry. Everything from the director’s cold, monotone narration to, later, Haslett’s recreation of Weil in conversation using a method actor, the reverence elevates the insightful but sloppy biographical insight into the philosopher. When re-tracing Weil’s pursuits overseas, Haslett ascends the stairs to a village’s famed crimson statue of the Virgin Mary. The camera shakes every so slightly with each step but Haslett’s pace never quickens. Beyond her gushing praise and rhetorical questioning, she remains humble and respectful.
Two years ago, Haslett successfully launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring her picture to theaters outside festival circuits (for what it’s worth, An Encounter won the Special Founder’s Prize at the Traverse City Film Festival in 2011.) This Thursday will mark the first screening in the Madison area since production wrapped three years ago.
- Central Cinema presents An Encounter With Simone Weil FREE at the Central Library on Tuesday, July 22 at 6:30p. Rm 302