Fresh in the wake of a disintegrated relationship and with several professional stints falling through, Sophie Bédard Marcotte decides to film her playwright neighbor, Gabriel, as he grapples with constructing and staging a riff on the Sisyphus myth. There’s not much structure but a freedom of enquiry and scope that eventually permeates the film “I Lost Sight of the Landscape.”

Sophie may not even have thought she’d stick it through till the very end, but she keeps going. The willingness to hold faith in the journey that pans out in unexpected directions and to delightful ends is both touching and richly absorbing. Patience and stubbornness are key, the playwright asserts to his actors who lie down on craggy rocks, wrestle with. They are asked to imagine and build a relationship with the rock. This is creative theatre that’s driven by untethered impulses. To lean into them is to put together the work without the burden of narrow definitions and containing territory-setting.

The wry, human, moving touch to the film makes it consistently charming, pulling us in a loosely floating rhythm. Sophie frequently insists throughout the film about being guided by his process, its openness a source of inspiration. Garbiel’s work leans into gestures and is intensive with physicality, initially negating any dialogue whatsoever. There’s no space for words in his theatre. But here is not an artist who lets himself and his principles stagnated, immovably fixed. Sophie’s film imbues this spirit with a lovely light hand. Instead of allowing a sense of defeat, the film is turned to the hopeful, a steady act of reconstructing and reassembling in the face of multiple crises.

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