The scene is a family meal. Five characters. Three appear on screen – Lili, the mother, Fabian, the son, and Coline, the daughter. An off-screen voice, Joël Bartoloméo, the father. A subjective presence, the camera.

The opening shot is a close-up of Lili's bust, with her head out of shot. Her arms start to move, serving Fabian. A movement of the camera shows the table. With this movement, Joël Bartoloméo signals his presence, a minimal control of the situation. At the same time, the positioning of the camera doesn't correspond to his own position. It is a member in its own right, an extra guest seated at his side. These two, the artist and the camera are only made real by Lili's eye play, its direction. This ubiquity-ambiguity of the artist and his medium give the viewer the possibility of slipping in between the two, to blend into this subjective and mechanical view of things. And we join them. We arrive in the middle of a discussion.

Lili: What if we went away on Monday-Tuesday?… No, what about going away tomorrow?
Joël: Tomorrow?
[…]
Joël: There's school on Thursday!
Lili: That's what I'm asking you … You said no!…

A new shot with Lili filling the left part of the frame. Her place fluctuates as she moves around – in shot, out of shot, whatever. Shortly she looks towards the camera – turning towards the hypothetical spectator, as if to ensure that the spectator understands her confusion. Little more than a glance, Lili hesitates about whether or not to notice. After this preamble, the tart announced in the title makes its appearance. The control of the artist appears in the choice of sequence: this piece of reality, a slice of daily life, takes on the allure of a mini-fiction. "Well, it really is fiction, even if there are moments of terror and anxiety, it all takes place in a very short time: it was general exacerbation that prompted me to place the camera, and it's this element that I exploit …", says Joël Bartoloméo.

Lili: I'm losing my marbles.
She lifts the tart.
Lili: It's like a drum!
She tosses the tart in her hands and makes a noise like rubber pastry.
Lili: Chwoing! Chwoing!
She cuts the tart with a pair of scissors.

Lili looks at the camera before cutting the tart, as if making sure that the spectator can see what's happening. A kind of complicity where the 'plot' of The lemon tart takes shape.

Coline: Mum, if it's good I'll give you a big kiss!
Lili: It won't be good, look at that, have you seen what the pastry looks like!
Lili tastes the tart.
Lili: I didn't get the pastry right at all … it's cooked and uncooked at the same time.

The angle of attack of the scene changes. The movement goes from Lili to the centre of the table. Lili leans over, part of her face is revealed. In the centre, the tart. An unconscious act? Lili sporadically tries to exist on the screen and comes into shot bit-by-bit.

Lili: My tart's good, don't you want to taste my tart, it's really good.
Joël: You said it was a flop.
Lili, incredulous: No, no, it's really good.
Joël, barely audible: Give me a taste then.

In another shot, the two children hug Lili, flanking her and framing her, oppressing her a little more in the image. The children leave the shot, as if a curtain had opened – Lili's face, piqued and discouraged, appears in the centre of the image. Her look passes over the camera without stopping. The subjective regard of the camera-spectator then slips into a kind of voyeurism.

Lili: Go and get me a cigarette, I need to smoke a fag immediately or I'll eat all the tart. Go and get me a ciggy, Coline, right this minute! It's an emergency… Why haven't you eaten your bit of tart?

Joël Bartoloméo admits that he doesedit his films very much, so as not to have the impression of cheating. The succession of shots very often corresponds to a stopping and starting of the camera. He says that this corresponds to the 'conjuring away' of Méliès. We have simply come to watch the little Bartoloméo theatre, at a meal like a ritual. Joël Bartoloméo likes to compare himself to an ethnologist who takes the scene as it presents itself.

What makes this work differ from the kind of programme that television can produce is the great autonomy given to the camera and how the medium is taken into consideration in the way the scene is retranscribed. A mechanism that retranscribes reality and is sometimes able to fade into oblivion when there isn't an eye behind it. A dialogue between the artist and his camera like the understanding between a director and his cameraman!

Close to white, with the sound of Lili's voice.
Lili: Hurry up and give me a cigarette or I'll eat your bit of tart!

Dominique Garrigues