Synopsis
As soon as the fingers of the French accordionist, and of the two Taiwanese harpist and pipa player start to run on their instruments the different melodies influenced by each of their culture, the audience is immersed in the multicultural atmosphere set by the collaboration between the two puppet companies.
In front of the public stands a box, reminding the traditional tool of puppeteers, but this very box is a massive one of 4 meters on 4 meters. On left and right side of it, three Taiwanese and their puppets and three French and their puppets. As they are walking around the box so as to express the distance they cross, they finally meet. Then on start a Shakespearian love story, and a friendship grows between the 6 puppeteers.
The box, fixed on a rolling structure, rotates on itself and gives each time the audience the occasion to see a new face of it, a new part of the plot, new interactions between actors, as well as new elements of each countries’ puppet tradition.
This documentary follows the thread of “The Box” from besides the coulisse’s curtains of this one year long collaboration between the French Puppet Company “Les Zonzons” with the Taiwanese “Taiyuan” Company. Following the chronology of their collaboration, traveling back and forth from Taipei to Lyon for Guignol’s 200 years birthday and back to Taipei for the Art Festival, the film will not only shows parts of the live representations and their rehearsals, but also it tries to give audience the occasion to grasp more understandings on those two old puppet’s traditions. Beyond this introduction, the film also questions the current state of both Puppet Theater and the problem of transmission of these traditions. Meantime, through relating this artistic co-realization where puppets play somehow a mediating role, a kind of ‘bridge’ of reflection, creation, communication and respect between those two companies with differences of life and lifestyle, way of thinking, environment, language, code, etc, this film evokes the issue of intercultural dialogue. As a mirror of the play it presents, and trying to get out from the usual clichés of portraits made on both culture, this non-fictional film depicts an encounter between people from these two cultures and tries to give some insights on the exchanges and the process of mutual understanding that underlie beneath.

Keywords: intercultural communication; intercultural awareness; intercultural performance; exchanges of knowledge; transmission of traditions; documentary film; non-fiction film.

－ 片名：（法文）En chair et en bois
（英文）In flesh and wood
－ 型態、規格 ： 紀錄片； DV
－ 長度：77分鐘

Film and documentary
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Puppet Theater
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Intercultural issues
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