1922

Marcel Proust is lying on his deathbed and reflecting on his life.
With photographs as an aide memoire he remembers both real life characters
and his own fictional creations.
In the confusion of his final illness, they blur in his mind until finally fiction supersedes reality.

Proust's literary characters people his memories to the extent that his life makes sense only through his work.
His creations come to life like a stereoscopic projection on the wall of his apartment
in Rue Hamelin.
Through them, he remembers his family, the happy days and lost paradises of his childhood; and the more recent events of his social and literary life.
The terrible drama of the first world war, closely examined from the viewpoint of the small circles of Paris society, is thus transformed into a vast social comedy. Thrown into sharp relief by Proust's creations, the shape of post-war society looms on the horizon.

Ruiz does his utmost to recreate the impossible timelessness of Proust's work, blending the baroque and the surreal.
His careful examination of body language and reading of signs reveals
a world of madmen, observed incredulously by the Narrator.
The characters behave like marionettes, though it is never clear whether it is the narrator or the creations themselves who control the strings.
The sense of abstraction culminates in the dreadful masquerade of the Ball of Faces, where a universal lack of recognition reigns.
No one can be found in their rightful place.
The Narrator watches in disbelief as, ghostlier than ever, almost all the characters appear as disjointed puppets - mummified, aggressive, blind, superannuated or unwittingly amusing impostors, all vainly trying to conceal the only truth that hides behind their makeup.