Boris sans Béatrice

Inside the image.

A tall, muted grey poster is built around a large, frontal portrait of a bald, bearded man. His head and shoulders fill the centre and lower half of the composition; he looks directly outward with a steady, unsmiling expression. The face is softly lit, with pale highlights across the forehead, nose and cheeks and darker shading around the eyes, beneath the nose and along the beard. He wears a coarse-looking grey collared garment, visible at the shoulders and chest. The portrait fades into a pale, mottled background rather than sitting within a distinct frame.

The surface is overlaid with fine dark cracks and scratches, as if the image were printed on damaged or fractured material. A prominent branching fracture crosses the left side of the man's forehead and continues down across his cheek; other long, angular lines run diagonally across the face and background, with a near-horizontal line crossing the lower portrait. The collar and lower edge of the shoulders also appear broken into irregular, stone-like fragments. Faint, enlarged facial features are layered into the background: an eye is visible at upper right, and a pale face-like shape occupies the upper left. These ghostly elements are low contrast and partly obscured by the cracks and the central portrait.

At the top, a small black emblem and the words “66e” and “Competition” sit above the name “JAMES HYNDMAN EST”. The main title, “BORIS SANS BÉATRICE”, spans almost the full width in very large uppercase serif lettering. It sits inside a thin rectangular outline, with “BORIS” in black and the remaining words in dark red tones. Several narrow lines of much smaller cast and crew credits appear beneath the title, followed by the centred line “UN FILM DE DENIS CÔTÉ”. The lettering is set over the image, leaving the portrait visible below. A row of small logos and fine-print credits runs along the bottom edge; most of these marks are too small to read confidently.

The palette is restrained: ash grey, stone, and off-white dominate, with black lettering and a deep red accent in the title. The overall image has a hazy, low-contrast quality, while the title and the dark fracture lines provide sharper definition. It combines a photographic-looking portrait with layered, faded imagery and an aged, cracked surface treatment. There is no separate outer border; the poster image reaches all four edges.