NOCTURNAL starts from the image of nocturnal animals suddenly caught in a beam of light,
frozen for a moment before disappearing again.
 

Shot entirely at night in Tokyo, the film transposes this idea to the human body
and to the urban environment we have built for ourselves.
 

The camera searches through an abstract landscape of concrete and light until it encounters a mysterious figure. A pursuit begins. Dancer Hikaru Kawasaki runs, slides, falls and seems at times to fly through the architecture, moving through it as naturally as an animal in its habitat.
 

Through extreme slow motion, his body escapes normal gravity and shifts between different physical attitudes. Little by little, the relationship reverses : the figure is no longer being hunted.
He knows this environment, masters it, and eventually takes control of the chase.
 

NOCTURNAL is an ode to movement and to the graphic beauty of our urban environment.

Shot in high-contrast black and white, entirely outdoors at night in Tokyo.
All graphic lighting effects were created practically on location.

Directed and edited by Caroline Grimprel, with the final film built in After Effects through cut-outs,
repetition and fragmentation, somewhere between film, photography and collage.