# He Fa on Gilles Deleuze

Three Minutes on the Floor

Canonical: https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/hefa-on/encounters/deleuze-1985

He Fa · Created with AI collaboration

1985 / Paris · a borrowed screening room

![He Fa balances on a sliding chair and lifts tangible film strips from the floor as Deleuze pins one frame with his shoe and tea flows backwards into a kettle.](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/hefa-on/encounters/media/deleuze-1985-073a7621e7271ffa.webp)

The projector clicked to a halt. Three minutes fell off the screen.

A long strip of old perforated film landed beside my shoes, little people still moving chairs inside it. Paris, 1985. I crouched to pick it up. As my finger touched a frame, the chair behind me slid back to its previous place. I stumbled and sat down backwards.

Deleuze raised a foot to let a recently elapsed cough crawl beneath his sole. Sure enough, someone coughed again.

“Don’t crumple it,” he said.

I had already squeezed several seconds into a ball. By the door the projectionist began bending down repeatedly, picking up the same screwdriver, putting it down and picking it up again. He looked at me, his anger freshly renewed each time. I hurriedly smoothed the strip. At last he could straighten up.

We needed to feed time back into the machine, but the more we pulled, the longer the strip grew. I picked up the second of my arrival. The door immediately opened; another newly arrived me almost came in. Deleuze pinned that frame with the tip of his shoe. Outside, I heard myself ask, “Is this the toilet?”

He looked at me. I said I had indeed been looking for it.

Tea began pouring backwards from a cup into the kettle. In the back row someone put on a coat in reverse, then removed it in reverse. Whenever anyone stepped on the film, the room repeated that frame. I climbed onto a chair. The chair was in the film too. It carried me sliding back towards the door.

Deleuze picked up the scissors the projectionist had left beside a chair. Thinking he meant to cut my entrance, I hastily gripped the chair back. He pointed to six quiet frames on the floor: the door stood open, nobody arriving, nobody leaving.

We joined them together. The projectionist turned the reel and an unoccupied gap appeared in the doorway. I jumped from the chair and stepped through, Deleuze following close behind. He returned the scissors to the projectionist. The door slammed, and the chairs inside finally stopped running.

Back at my theatre I discovered a short strip in my pocket: exactly one minute. I placed it beside my cold tea and slowly dragged it backwards. Steam rose from the cup. Delighted, I dragged a little further.

The tea leaves returned to their paper packet. The cup was empty.

I had to boil the kettle again.

Éditions de Minuit published the French edition of Cinema 2: The Time-Image in Paris in 1985.

The time travel, fantastic events and dialogue are literary fiction; images are AI-assisted creations.

- [Les Éditions de Minuit · L’Image-temps，Cinéma 2](https://www.leseditionsdeminuit.fr/livre-L%E2%80%99Image_temps-2018-1-1-0-1.html)
- [BnF · L’Image-temps / Gilles Deleuze，1985](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/cb34837710v.public)