Lys: ‘Fleur du Mal’

This is Lys: part-Egyptian, part-Hindu, part-French. A Sorceress, full of demons and mystique, lost hopelessly to pleasure. This heavy-smoking Scheherazade has the power to keep you awake for night after night after night.

In the first scene, she presents herself with a natural malevolent, seductive poetry. A Fleur du Mal speaking sphinxily, witchily about the connection she consciously creates between her feminity and her cigarettes; about the jealousy men in her life have felt at her overpowering dependence on nicotine.

In the second scene, she performs her work candidly in front of the camera, sculpting, squeezing on the cigarette held between her clay-covered fingers. Her piece depicts a pair of exposed breasts; she covers her own with a translucent white top. The smoking complements her artistic process, coming out of her like the exhaust gas of burnt passion, thrumming off the sculpture itself like an aura of her presence.

In the final scene, you will sit with her at an outdoor table. Her busy phone throws light on her face; her shirt is halfway unbuttoned. As she smokes, she reflects – partly talking to you, mostly to herself. Two enormous black eyes look at you through a tousled bob – big enough to lose yourself and to be devoured in. She smiles a knowing smile, and the slims crumble like pillars of time between her fingers.