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The Centre National de la Photographie presents
One minute for one image
I know this image.
It is part of the army archives
and the photographer kept the negatives in a drawer for 20 years.
It was the Algerian war and he was doing his military service.
This woman was forced to pose for him, as everyone in the village,
who were being photographed for the mandatory ID card.
So he was following orders
and she was forced to take out her veil, to drop her veil.
This double bind, this violence against both of them,
is visible, above all, in the incredible force
with which this woman refuses.
And if her messy hair gives the impression
of a pain, of an emotion, of a disturbance,
the rigidity of her face, her mouth as a bitter fold,
and the incredible violence of her gaze -
everything says: "No!".
One can give orders to this woman, one cannot subject her.
I'm very moved by this woman's face.
And by the work of the photographer who,
in doing his dirty army work,
went further than the understanding he had of what was going on.
Agnès Varda (filmmaker) has commented a photograph by
Marc Garanger (Algerian Woman, 1960)