'Movie director Heddy Honigmann takes her hand held video camera into Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris & without background music, relies only on the noises & sites drifting through the air of this 'living' cemetery. Shoes on pavement, water bottles being filled, the bristle sounds of cleaning brushes on marble, a woman singing an aria to Maria Callas, birds in the trees. The world visits Proust from Korea, Argentina, Iran, all on this day; a lovely Japanese pianist is devoted to Chopin, a woman reads aloud to a buried love one, an atheist who fled Spain & Marco
spends every day with friends on a bench beside his grave.
Morrison, Wilde, Chopin, Proust, Piaf & Callas among others are the famous buried here & there are pilgrimages to these graves, but it is the unknowns that lead us along anecdotes & personal stories about loved ones that warm the soul. This is not a grim testimony about the history of the cemetery, but a quiet reflection on the cycle of life, death & the impact shared by a few every day people who provide the heartbeat to this fascinating, sacred ground.
