Arnold’s original material here is a "found footage" of the 1950s, 18 seconds long and very typical of this era. A very quiet shot: a living room, a woman sitting in an armchair. Her husband opens the door, kisses her, then leaves the image accompanied by a disturbing movement of the camera, his wife following him. In Arnold's film, this sequence lasts 16 minutes. Frame by frame, it becomes an exciting tango. But Pièce Touchée is more than just form. The reflections, the distortions and the delays that it describes challenge the stable Hollywood system of space and time.
