You, the Living

Fin août, début septembre/Late August, Early September (1998) - Assayas Again, more I watch Olivier Assayas's films, they remind me what a great writer he is - how perceptive and insightful he is in every character and situation. That he is one of the great working writer/directors I admire most. Late August, Early September is no exception. Its down to earth characters and their approach to life that they lead, warts and all, are all too believable. I remember someone on the internet asking what filmmaker's films you want to live in- a decidedly a corny question, and thinking about it for a minute at the time but couldn't come up with an answer. After watching August/September, if I have a choice, I can safely say that I'd want to live in Assayas movies.

Late August, Early September concerns Gabriel (played fluidly by the great Mathieu Amalric), a literary editor/translator/documentary filmmaker, being tasked to interview a recluse writer Adrien (François Cluzet), since they think Gabriel is the one Adrien can trust and open up to. Adrien is a good writer - not a big famous one, but a good one. Always broke. And he does open up to Gabriel, after Gabriel accompanies him to the countryside to his childhood hometown. It's a friendship built on respect and admiration.

While juggling his professional career, Gabriel is also going through a breakup with live-in partner Jenny (Jeanne Balibar). They are trying to sell their apartment and split the money. It's hard when they still have feelings for each other and all your friends and family are mutual, wherever they go. Then there's Anne (Virginie Ledoyen), Gabriel's new young, hot-headed fling who is very into a physical, sexual relationship. Anne is trouble and she herself knows it too.

Then there is Vera (Mia Hansen-Løve, the real life partner of Assayas and an esteemed director herself), a high-schooler and Adrien's secret girlfriend: there's a poignant thread of this unrecognized love, only to be revealed after Adrien's untimely death, which affects great many people, especially Gabriel.

Early August, Late September sketches out very naturally (with Assaya's signature handheld, grainly Super 16mm), a creative person's life and its ups and downs and the meaningful relationships he forms. As usual, jobs don't define these characters. Their interactions feel genuine and truthful. Their joy and sorrow deeply felt. It's amazing how everyone looks so young in this, but at the same time so mature, compared to other characters these actors imbibe in their later years. Wistful yet hopeful, the film is a beautiful elegy to the vagaries of life. Loved it.

Life's Curve Balls

One Fine Morning (2022) - Hansen-Løve After experimenting with the self-reflexive Bergman Island where she explored the origins of the artistic inspirations and the nature of art influencing life and vice versa, esteemed writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve comes back to her usual theme of grief and passage of time with quietly devastating yet lovely, One Fine Morning. The theme, I truly believe, that no other contemporary film directors can put in words and on screen, as acutely and sensitively as she can. With exceptional script and acting, One Fine Morning is a finely composed filmmaking at its best.

Léa Seydoux plays Sandra, a Parisian widow juggling life with tending to her grade school daughter, taking care of her aging father while working as a translator. She leads a relatively quiet existence with her loving daughter Sarah in her tiny apartment. She is a learned woman who speaks several languages and is very efficient at her job. But it's her father, Georg (Pascal Greggory) who's in sharp cognitive decline, and in great need of help with everything from opening the front door of his flat, to going to the bathroom. He often forgets where he is and where he places things. With her siblings busy with their own lives, it seems the duty to look after him largely falls on Sandra. As she and her mom/Georg's ex (Nicole Garcia), discuss the next steps, she realizes that Georg is facing grim prospects- Retirement home in Paris is expensive, has a long waitlist, and his pension alone will not cover it. And they've heard so many horror stories about the condition of many of these establishments. They are pretty much a waiting place for undignified death. He will also need to sell his flat, which is filled to the brim with books, as he was a scholar and a teacher. 'What do we do with all of his books?' Sandra wonders out loud. 'These were his life.' Françoise, maybe cold but more practical, tells her that they will have to throw away most of them. 'Why don't you just burn them?' She quips. Hansen-Løve doesn't shy away from all the life's complications. These are real quandaries people actually face in life. So is love and relationship.

Sandra finds love in an unexpected place. She runs into Clément (Melvil Poupaud), an acquaintance of her dead husband, at a playground while playing with her daughter. He is married and has a young son. He is an astro-chemist and takes long expedition trips to the remotest areas. There is a mutual attraction and they can't help but fall for each other. But he is not ready to leave his family for her. This is again, another added complication Sandra wasn't really looking for in life. Even though she still pretty young, she had given up on any romance long ago, resigned to the idea that part of her life is already over. But life throws curve balls at you like that.

It is almost unthinkable to see Seydoux, a glamorous international movie starlet as a sad, frumpy, middle aged single mom. But with short haircut and no makeup in her mom jeans, she is remarkably natural as Sandra, who thinks she is over her prime, weathering life's problems. In her understated way, Seydoux conveys Sandra's enormous compassion toward her father and deep understanding of his predicament - a brilliant academic whose age rapidly robbing away at what he once was and awkward shyness of finding herself to love and be loved again which she already had given up on. It is by far the best performance of her career if not the most poignant. Greggory, once a dashing leading man in French cinema not twenty years ago, plays demanding role of a brilliant mind in cognitive decline. Garcia gives matter of fact, no nonsense woman who provides much needed dry humor as she banters with her new husband about the state of French politics, portraying the embodiment of a Macron liberal. Poupaud is also on point with nerdy energy and charm, equally surprised by his own forwardness with the declaration of love.

As with all of her previous films, Hansen-Løve is a keen observer of fleeting life. This time she is tackling the theme of aging and decline, which is not a subject many filmmakers touch upon. This is part of life many people don't want to think about but fast becoming an issue as the elderly population grows larger. It makes you think about the attitudes towards elderly. Once brilliant, vibrant minds who need our compassion and treated with dignity, not pity and sympathy. Because we will all become old one day. One Fine Morning, as the simple title suggests, all we can do is face the life one day at a time. Leave all the sorrows of yesterdays behind because there will be another beautiful morning tomorrow.

One Fine Morning opens 1/27 in New York and Los Angeles. National release will follow.

Cinema Saved My Life: Mia Hansen-Løve on One Fine Morning

It's always a pleasure to talk to Mia Hansen-Løve, one of my favorite contemporary directors in French cinema. Her astute observations of life and time passing always gets me. Her new film One Fine Morning, featuring mega movie star Léa Seydoux in an unrecognizable role as a single mother who juggles motherhood, aging parent and love, is a truly touching and moving film. The interview was conducted via Zoom in December. We talked about the film in detail, about Seydoux, her obsession and how filmmaking saved her life!

One Fine Morning opens 1/27 in theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The national roll out will follow.

The title of the film One Fine Morning/Un beau martin is a simple one and it reminds me of Yasujiro Ozu’s. The theme of time passing and family relations are all familiar Ozu territory. Is it safe to assume Ozu’s influence in your films?

Thank you for comparing my films to Ozu’s. I am a big admirer of his films. Yes. I loved his minimalism and also how restrained his style is, the way he looks at life without adding documentary to it, how he presents it straight with proper distance, proper frame and proper rhythm. There’s a feeling of truth, you know. I don’t pretend to say that I do the same way. I’m trying to find my own language, but I am sensitive to that kind of philosophy of filmmaking. His film Late Spring, for instance, haunted me a lot. There’s a lot of father-daughter relationships in Ozu’s films. It’s the subject I am very sensitive to.

I don’t know if I can say I ‘chose’ the title. One Fine Morning. It was some kind of illumination. During the writing process, the title just appeared to me. It was the same for my first feature, All is Forgiven. You don’t even know why, but there it is, and that is the title. I like it because it was not an intellectual process. It’s there where it should be. The title has to impose itself and then you can intellectualize about it and find reasons to it, not the other way around. Those are the best titles. Now I know what the title means: there’s the notion of the beginning, of clarity. Clarity is a word that matters to me a lot as a writer and a director but also as a person in my life. I enjoy that the notion of clarity in this title. But there is also a fairytale aspect of it. Do you know il était une fois, in German it’s Es war einmal…

You mean ‘Once Upon a Time…’?

And to me One Fine Morning is another kind of ‘Once Upon a Time’. There is something that has to do with storytelling and innocence. It’s like the lullabies in my films I use. I love lullabies in my films and it connects with the childhood, also we hear them as adults too and there’s a connection with this title as well. It’s a poetic idea of course.

Something like a New Beginning.

Yes, new beginning and it’s a difficult story and a sad story but there is a pleasure of a story being told. There’s something cathartic about fairy tales. We love to be told stories. It’s all unconscious though. I am thinking about it now and analyzing it now. (laughs)

I think choosing that title has to do with the desire of not only dealing with harsh reality but also has to do with romantic, cathartic way to hear stories and to tell stories.

Speaking of music and speaking of lullabies. I noticed Jan Johansson’s music in the beginning. Is there a story behind it?

Do you know Jan Johansson?

I’ve heard of him, but since I saw your film, I’ve been listening to him a lot.

I have to confess something I did here that I'd never done and probably will never do again, I stole that track from one of the lesser known Bergman films--

Ah.

The film that I love, it’s called The Touch. If you have seen the film, it would make sense. The two films have something in common in a way – an adulterous passion outside of a marriage. It’s a Bergman film that has been haunting me when I was preparing the film. And that music was haunting me so much that I couldn’t think of any other melody for my film. The music was not composed for Bergman by the way, it existed before. And I am using it again.

Interesting. Good to know.

Thinking about the role of Sandra. I wasn’t expecting Léa Seydoux in that role. Seydoux is a glamourous movie star and here she plays a single mom without any makeup. How did you get to choose here for the film?

Yes she is glamourous and yes she can be sophisticated in films and as a person too, but there is also a rawness about Léa. It’s not only that she plays with simplicity and rawness, but also there’s something almost masculine side of her. You feel she can be both, which is quite special, even without knowing her personally. While working with her it is quite apparent that her rawness is almost Bressonian. I find her presence very strong. On the one hand she has this star quality about her on the other hand, she is extremely simple and plain in her acting, like an Ozu or Bresson actress – she doesn’t force anything, there’s no intention and that’s all I care about when I deal with actors. I still love working with unknown, non-actors and with children and teenagers, as well as working with Isabelle Huppert, Vicky Krieps or Nicole Garcia. Both cases, what I care about is innocence. That’s what I admire. And sometimes it’s challenging when I work with actors who has great deal of experiences. It’s challenging to have them get rid of all their habits and let them show themselves as who they really are, and not pretend, you know. With Léa, it was incredibly easy. Easy for me at least. It’s what I am looking for in actors. She preserved the quality of innocence in her acting. It’s so easy with her, it’s almost embarrassing for me. Even with all the films with all these directors, she still has that innocence about her. Even more impressive is the emotions she brings on set. I mean, all the actors know how to cry on command, but it can be very mechanical without emotions. But when Léa cries in the scene, I cry. It never happened to me before. It’s hard to tell with her if she is acting or really living the scene. It is almost disturbing. Even when it’s not in the script, in some moments, just reading the lines with Pascal (Greggory) who plays her father, she becomes very emotional. She becomes the character and they become virtually the same.

Pascal Greggory’s character, once an intellectual person who is losing himself due to Alzheimers was heartbreaking. I was thinking about the physicality of your being. That all you have left at the end is your books. Do you think about your mortality often and what you will leave behind? Is that what this movie is partly about?

I think of that all the time. (Laughs) That’s why I started making films when I was 18 years old. I was obsessed with passing of time and what we are going to leave behind, at the age when you are not supposed to think about those things. I think that’s partly why I became a director. Some people would say naïve, but for me it was very efficient way of fighting against time and destruction it brings. The fact that life and death happen and time carries on and vanishes everything… I had that obsession ever since I was young. That makes me say today that I was a very melancholic young woman. And that’s why I say sometimes that cinema saved my life. Because cinema brought me back to the present. It made me enjoy the moments. It made me feel more rooted, thanks to the intensity of making films, especially the actual production (shooting). The intensity made me feel that I was alive and present in life, you know. Before I discovered making films, I always felt a little bit disconnected – the awareness of the passing of time took too much space in my head and it unbalanced my life. It all started there for me. I think it’s easier for me now but that obsession is still part of who I am. It influences my inspiration and my characters and art.

The father character who figuratively disappears which is inspired by my father. It is difficult to see my father disappear. But I want to and need to believe that there’s something remains. When I made this film, I am trying to meditate on that. I don’t want to cheat or tell lies to myself. I am trying to look at life the way it is. But I am trying to look further and find meaning to that. And I am trying to cling on to the idea that there is a soul, even with or without believing in god. And I am trying to approach the idea of what a soul is.

You will not be forgotten. I can tell you that.

(Laughs) I was talking about my father…

I know.

A Meta-Contemplation on an Artist's Creative Process

Bergman Island (2021) - Hansen-Løve For the last decade, Mia Hansen-Løve, with a string of beautifully written and acted, melancholic films about life and passing of time, has emerged as one of the most highly-regarded directors working today.

Her delicate and subtle films, be it a coming of age tale in Goodbye First Love, about pursuing one's dreams and succumbing in Eden, or about taking life's curve balls in stride in Things to Come, there has always been plenty of evidences of a great writer/director cementing her own unique voice in film world, which is a still very much male-dominanted industry.

It is interesting then, that we see Hansen-Løve digging deeply into the subject that concerns a woman's artistic struggles in finding her own voice while being a longtime partner of someone who's more established and better known, taking a not so guised reference from her real life, for she was a long time partner of director and mentor, Olivier Assayas.

Even though Bergman Island is her first English language film with an international cast -- Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth, Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie -- the theme doesn't quite give enough distance from her real life. Sure, an older man who has a big influence on how a young woman develops and finds her own self has always been there in her films, most recently in Maya.

But her self-reflexiveness was not as out in the open as in Bergman Island. I'm not faulting this move and don't want to call it regressive, but a female director finding her own voice and out of her male partner's shadow in a place called Bergman Island seems quite an unusual choice for already established and well-regarded director. Perhaps that was her intention, though, to differentiate herself and reiterate that her working method is different, that her creative process is not like that of Assayas nor Bergman.

Bergman Island concerns a film director couple Tony (Roth) and Chris (Krieps) coming to Faros Island, where the famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman made a bulk of his films and had a house there, to work on their new projects. Many writers, filmmakers and architects have been flocking around there to get inspirations from where the maestro lived and worked.

Tony is a world-renowned filmmaker and is always surrounded by adoring fans. It's no different, even on the remote island. He gets invited to the soirées thrown by the Bergman Society, film screenings, and frequently ta;ls on the phone with his producers about his latest project. While Tony works on his new script with ease in the main house, Chris sets up shop in the mill across the yard from him to work on her own script.

She's a little taken aback by the fact that Bergman was not a nice man to be around and had 11 children from nine wives. She also doesn't like the idea that him being a bad father was somehow a prerequisite for him to be a prolific genius. "You think he was changing diapers while being a genius?," a Bergman fan quips. It also bothers her that the beauty of the island -- the sun-kissed coastline, deep blue sea, idealic pastures -- produced a dark, disturbing and pessimistic view of life in many of his films.

After frolicking around the island, she concocts a script about a young woman named Amy, coming to the island for her friend's wedding and confronts her first love, Joseph, again. They have only three days together on the island.

Chris starts telling the story in the hopes of getting some guidance from Tony. Tony attentively listens. And now we are thrown into a unrequited love story of two lovers (Wasikowska and Lie) who were too young to realize what they had and now it's too late to reconnect, in film-within-a-film. Amy, a filmmaker from New York, can't forget Joseph, her first love, even though they both grew up and have moved on with their lives.

The story is slight and without an end. But their love and attraction are palpable. For a long period of time, we only see the couple's story unfolding, as they rekindle their love, then realize they can't be together. From time to time, that story is interrupted by Chris checking on Tony, to see if he is paying attention to her story/film.

There are many funny bits referring to Bergman: like Scenes from a Marriage causing millions of divorces, a Bergman Safari tour, a deadpan projectionist at the Bergman's private theater calling out that he doesn't have a print of Saraband, so Tony and Chris was subjected to watching Cries and Whispers.

The film's meta-ness, the story of Amy and Joseph slowly melding into Chris's own life, suggests that the film Bergman Island is itself is a way of showcasing a filmmaker (Hansen-Løve)'s creative process. And it can come across a little too precious at times. The film is certainly not the usual Hansen-Løve's ultra-wise life observations.

All the ingredients to make a great Hansen-Løve film are here: great assemblage of talented, intriguing actors, great location, self-reflexive storytelling, young love. But it doesn't quite gel together.

We all process our surroundings differently and express ourselves in unique ways. Contrasting oneself to others might be one way. Perhaps Bergman Island is Hansen-Løve's most personal film to date, showing her incongruities and subtle ways towards filmmaking.

Interview: Mia Hansen-Løve on Her India Set, Daring New Film Maya

Mia Hansen-Løve is one of my very favorite directors working today. Her infinitely wise films about time passing, beautiful characterization of people who inhabits her films and her willingness to always expand her cinematic universe at whatever the cost, leave me in awe. Her new film Maya isn't an exception to this rule. Structurally daring, logistically ambitious but always heartfelt, the filmmaker is reaching a new height. I got a chance to talk to her while she was in town for Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. Stuck in traffic and suffering from a cold, I was about ten minutes late for our appointment but she was so accomodating and kind to me. I thank her from the bottom of my heart.

So here is how our conversation went:

Throughout your filmography you try to do something different and something bigger, grander in scale each time. I like that about you.

Oh thanks for saying that. Not many people notices that.

Gabriel, one of the main characters in MAYA, played by Roman Kolinka, is a war journalist. Is he based on anybody?

Not really. I got some of… my inspiration from a former hostage but it stops when the trip to India starts. The only thing you could say is his story was inspired by true events and it has to do with captivity but film doesn’t deal so much with that. I mean it’s just the starting point of the film. But this trip to India to me is mostly an inner journey. And the film is really about invisible transformation... of not anyone in particular, maybe only pertains to me, in a more indirect way. But the character is not certainly inspired by someone in particular.

Speaking of something that is more personal and has more direct relationship with you, does India and especially Goa, have special connection to you?

It does. I’ve been traveling to India for the last ten years or so. I’ve been there almost every year. I’ve written one of my films there. But I’ve been attracted to india since I was in my 20s. Of course it had to do with me wanting to move on and do something different and so on. But I actually needed it, both as a person and as and artist. And at some point it made sense to me to try to confront my sensibility to India. It wasn’t like I wanted to make a film about or taking place in India then make up the story. This story for the film came to my mind first.

Right.

The story and characters came first and I thought it would make sense at this point, especially after Things to Come which was a such a ‘home movie’ in a way. (laughs) In another way, but you know what I mean. I wanted to go to a very different place and take that risk. I think risk somehow always excites me too. It was a way to get close to India and to go further in my relationship to India and not stay on the surface of it. Because you go there as a tourist, even if you go many times, it’s hard to go beyond the surface, unless you live there and….

But I thought to myself what’s the best way to know india better? Maybe to shoot a film there. That’s a great way to experience the place - to know places and people and experience things that I would never get to do otherwise. It’s challenging but also very exciting. I think it’s a very good way to go deeper into different culture and a country.

Did it feel like that when you were shooting part of EDEN, in New York?

I think all of my films somehow have been ways to get deeper into certain world. There are never documentary because I am really into fiction but somehow there was always this dimension in my films using fiction and making films as a way to further my experience and my knowledge. I think that’s what films should do anyway.

Right. Definitely. I have to tell you that EDEN is one of my favorite films of all time. It’s a masterpiece and I really really love that film.

Oh thank you. I will tell my brother (Sven, whose DJ career was the basis for Eden) will be happy to hear that.

How was shooting in India?

I think it was both amazing, extremely how do you say…joyful and also very tough. I mean it was actually amazing to be so far away to work with Indian people, to work with an Indian actress - just to lose myself and Immerse into such a different world. I got so much from it and I feel I am so much stronger since I made that film.

Gotcha.

For me there is before and after Maya. So the experience will stay forever with me. But on the other hand it was tough. When I started shooting I was already exhausted. both physically and mentally. I had tons of health issues at that time.

Oh sorry to hear that.

Nothing really bad but you know when you have that and when you are about to shoot a movie in India, it's not the best moment to have these kind of issues. Mentally also because the film was so difficult to finance. I felt huge responsibility toward my producers. I felt I had to not to do any overtime…, I'm always pushing for time. I felt I had great weight on my shoulders because all the risk they had taken to make that film. Maybe that was the most difficult thing on that shoot - this guilty feeling on some level. (laughs) But months after shooting, looking back what stays the strongest is a what unique experience it was.

It’s a unique movie too in a lot of aspects.

Oh thank you.

How did you find this beautiful actress, Aarshi Banerjee, who played Maya?

It took me some time to find Aarshi. We spent months looking for girls mostly in Mumbai but also around Mumbai, Maharashtra, but also in Goa and even in London, because we had some connections there, so we were looking though the Indian community- I was looking for a girl who speaks English. So it was casing but also in Facebook and social media. In many videos I got, I thought the girls were too much like actresses and too elegant. And I received this video of Aarshi where she filmed herself in a living room with a dog and she was so raw… I mean on the one hand she is extremely beautiful, in my head the character had to be, but on top of that she was so direct and so authentic. She moved me a lot with her maturity and depth and authority but at the same time she is also very much rooted…how do you say in…

Grounded.

Grounded, you know? she is really into her Indian reality. She’s not like ideal or romantic figure. she’s a real girl. And because my character Gabriel is a such a ghost when he arrives in India, I felt it was important that she shouldn’t be a ghost. She would have to be very real. I love the fact that she has a very timeless beauty but she also has a very contemporary quality to her. I think I used that a lot in her character.

That makes a lot of sense because I was wondering about the title because it could well have been Gabriel. Because the film starts with him and it’s his journey. But talking to you it makes sense that it’s called MAYA.

I think it is a poetic choice. The film doesn’t have to… the film is not a summery or… The title of the film is Maya and it says something. She brings something essential to the film and yes the main character is definitely Gabriel and you could say she just passes through the film, but she brings him back to life somehow. She bring him grace in his life. I thought it was beautiful to call the film Maya - the beauty and the fragility and youth that she symbolizes. She is the direction. She is the starting point. He might be the main character but she’s what the film looks at.

Is that also about that special person when we think back our lives there was this one person who changed the course of my existence somehow, that Gabriel can be that person for Maya by meeting her?

Totally. Maybe that was the starting point of the film. Also when I look back my own life I think of some persons I have met when I was a teenager and maybe they made me suffer at some point but they meant so much too and they helped me grow up and become aware of who I was and… So I am happy to hear that you understood that because that’s what the film is about. It’s a love story in a way but It’s more than a love story. The film is less conventional than that. Of course there’s love involved but even more than that, it’s about just what you said. Like how at some point two people who are very different who can’t really live together or make a couple… why they had to meet, why, there is something crucial that has a deep impact on your life coming out of this encounter, even though they go separate ways at the end.

That’s how I took it when I watched it. Why I admire you as an artist is that your film’s scale is getting bigger even though your theme - time passing and meeting someone important in your life. You always try something that is more difficult to achieve. You once told me that you were having hard time financing these films because they are grander in scale.

It’s the guilt I feel when I make these films because they are not financially viable. I obviously don’t want them to be expensive but the fact is I fight for shooting on 35mm film which is personally very important to me. And I struggle to keep a certain time, to have possibility of minimum of time because I have so many locations, I keep running from one place to another. I mean they are still cheap compared to 90 percent of films that are being made in the world but economically viable while still being free creatively like some other directors I know, I’m not smart on that side of things yet. I know I should be because it is vital to keep doing what I love doing.

No I think with all your films you show the audience that you really suffer for your art. I am grateful for it. I am grateful for watching these.

Thank you so much. Because it makes all worth it when people tell me this. It give me courage and confidence and we actually need it.

Keep doing it by all means. I don’t want to downplay the importance of this film but I’d love to see a sequel to this film. The way it ended, I want to see more of Maya since she is just starting her life.

I don’t know. it is hard to predict for myself what I’m going to do next but I enjoyed so much working with Aarshi and Roman that one thing for sure is I’d very much to work with them again at some point. I still feel frustrated about not getting enough from them.

Goa, the way you portray it, it’s going through a radical transformation with all the new constructions and all that. Is it actually happening? That the gentrification of Goa is real?

It’s maybe one thing that I’m the most proud of of the film. How faithful it is to today’s Goa. It’s a fiction and definitely not a documentary. But I’d like to frame it in such a way in fiction that I reflect the reality and capture the moment in time. I’ve seen Goa change a lot within the last 15 years and I’m not sure if I would go back there again anymore now because of these changes. Goa is certainly not a paradise but more like paradise lost. And that’s what I tried to show because there are still beauty and charms in many ways but you have so much mixed feelings when you are there because I think there are still a lot of poetry there in its heterogeneity in cultures and people all mixed up and magical because it’s still india but it’s ruined by tourism and corruption. It’s spoiling away literally both physically with pollution and mentally. I think in a way the film was my goodbye letter to Goa.

Life's Curveballs

L'avenir/Things to Come (2016) - Hansen-Løve

Natalie (the indomitable Isabelle Huppert), is a philosophy professor. She's married to a fellow academic, has two grown up kids and an aging, needy mother. They have a house in Brittany where their kids grew up, shelves full of books, in short a comfortable bourgeois life style. Natalie's life is thrown out of whack when her husband of 25 years tells her that there is another woman and he's moving in with her. Then her frail mother needs to be put in a nursing home. And she need to take care of her mother's cat named Pandora.

Mia Hansen-Løve, quite possibly the most astute observer of life and the passage of time in all contemporary writer/filmmaker, pulls off perhaps the most mature, nuanced and subtle work to date. In the Sarkozy era France background in political and social instability with student demonstrations dominating in and out of classroom (whatever the circumstances is, she makes a point that it's not unlike May 68'), the director contemplates the life that we thought we built for ourselves and the fragility of it.

And Huppert is, as always, marvelous. Her Natalie is literally losing everything- her marriage, parent, income from her text books that didn't get renewed. Surely there are some tearful nights alone in bed, but she is taking it all in strides. One of the members of her former student's collective in the mountain farm asks her political opinion on something (I don't remember what), she says she's been there and done that, that she's outgrown that ideal of her former self. Perhaps it's Natalie's experiences in life that makes her cope better with new, unexpected changes in life. That there are some values to getting old. There is a death and there is a birth in L'avenir but Hansen-Løve doesn't treat any of the life's 'big event' so dramatic.

L'avenir is also Hansen-Løve's most technically accomplished work to date. Sun drenched, warm cinematography and always moving camera make a point that whatever life throws at you, it's not as earth shattering as it seems. One of the very best this year.

Adolescent in Spirit: Arnaud Desplechin Interview

Arnaud Desplechin's magnificent new film, My Golden Days, opens theatrically today at FSLC in New York. It was preceded by a week long 8-film retrospective. I was lucky enough to snag an interview on the eve of the film's theatrical release with Desplechin who's known for his slightly amplified, messy, life-like stories.

Our conversation topic went from his new film, to his muse Mathieu Amalric, to other directors work he admire. It was a great experience talking to another cinephile who also happens to be a director of my favorite film of the year so far.

First of all, congratulations for winning the Best Director award at this year’s Cesár.

Arnaud Desplechin: Oh yes. I was happy. I was very happy with that.

I watched MY GOLDEN DAYS the other day and I have to tell you. It’s one of my favorite movies this year so far. It’s really fantastic.

Thank you so much.

So we saw Paul (Dedalus) and Esther characters some twenty years ago in your film, MY SEX LIFE (OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT). What’s the reason behind bringing them back again after all these years?

Actually I didn’t start with the idea of writing a prequel or whatever of Paul and Esther. I started with this couple with different names. In My Sex Life, the guy was already a Parisian and the girl was from the countryside you know. Then I realized that in My Goden Days, there are four characters who have to fit together and again I thought of My Sex Life. I talked with Mathieu (Amalric), “Twenty years ago, you and I regarded Paul as a sort of a hero, so if My Golden Days is going to be a prequel of some sort, you might have to go back and resume playing that character” and Mathieu said, “ No, I wouldn't be able to make the film.”

Because things have changed since then. Mathieu is a big movie star now and he wouldn’t be able to go back and play the same character the way he did. You know back then, he wasn’t an actor. He was a technician. He didn’t plan to be an actor. So in order to go back to the character, he had to find new ways to portray - the idiosyncrasies Paul had, the difficult relationships he had with his mother, how her death made deep impact on him dealing with women. You know the fact Paul was much more cautious and shy than Esther who seems solid as a rock. I thought it would be interesting to see the birth of their love.

MY GOLDEN DAYS can’t be an autobiography since the characters are about ten years younger than you. So is it loosely autobiographical or is it pure fiction?

I can see it as both. On one hand I am older than the characters, more than ten years. But I liked the idea of making a period piece. I wanted to set it during the fall of the Berlin walls, 1989. There was still the feeling of Cold War time and how we thought of Russia and all of that ended up there.

You know I’ve been a cinephile since I was ten. We cinephiles lead a very boring life. I don’t share the expanses of experience that Paul had. He is much more adventurous throughout his whole life. On the other hand, I tried to give a sense of autobiography. I like to share the feeling the characters are experiencing.

It’s funny because I could phrase it that way - I am asking actors on set not to just give me their acting craft. I’m sure their craft is wonderful and I expect that because I respect the art of acting. But I am asking them to give me the feeling of intimacy, something… the feelings that come out when they are speaking as themselves. So I’m just trying to be a good actor amongst good actors. I am trying to give you the feeling that the film is autobiographical.

I have to comment amazing performances by newcomers Quentin Dolmaire as Paul and Lou Roy-Lecollinet as Esther. I had a chance to interview Mathieu Amalric for BLUE ROOM last year. He says he owes everything to you. What is your method for actors that they say such things about your directing?

I would say Mathieu is too generous. I owe him a lot. There is a scene in My Golden Days where Paul writes a very long letter to his friend saying that he hopes he was good for Esther. I loved the words that was written and my friend (Julie Peyr of Parisienne) was helping me on the script and she was asking me how I would film that scene. Mathieu would come and we would find out the solution! I wouldn’t dare to write such long lines but he would come and help me. I owe him so much.

I don’t know about my method. But I know one thing and I am quite proud of it. I talked with Quentin before the shoot. I never behave like a teacher. When I did My Sex Life with Mathieu, we just had dialog, just simple ordinary dialog.

The only trick, if you can call it that, I have is even though I am a terrible actor, but I tried to act in front of them. So if we don’t find a solution, I’m not afraid to make a fool of myself by acting in front of them, rightly or wrongly. They see you are ridiculous. It encourages them to be ridiculous as well.

I loved where grown up Paul going off on his old friend and his wife at the end. It was such an impolite thing to do as a grownup to a friend you haven’t seen for twenty years. And that’s why I loved it. I loved Paul at that moment, his imperfections, his passion, his resolute behavior that he’s never going to forgive his friend as long as he lives.

Without Mathieu that scene wouldn’t have been possible. Absolutely not. Being serious and being humorous at the same time. It’s serious and funny at the same time. During the scene there was a wonderful moment I realized because when Paul was 19, he was behaving like he was 55. He was too reasonable, cautious, wise… and when he finally became an old man, he behaves like he is an adolescent! That’s what I love about the scene. Paul is a fool, full of rage and anger.

Do you share the same sentiment if you were in the same predicament?

(laughs) What I share with Paul is the idea to save certain things from the past- not forget it but save it. Obviously there is a price to pay if you save the past. You have to move to another chapter of your life somehow. But you also should be faithful to your younger self.

I couldn’t shake off the film’s melancholic mood. You can totally feel Paul’s heart being broken as he drifted apart from Esther. The differences in this film from something like Fellini’s 8 1/2 is that it’s so truthful to life that we never grow up and we still act like children sometimes. That life is not really a fantasy.

But now you’ve grown older and you made about 9 to 10 films, do you consider this film as your 8 1/2?


What is it?

The Fellini film?

Oh Huit et demi. Funny you mention that film. I just finished writing a script and I was so happy and full of excitement. I was discovering new writing process and et cetera, and for the first time in my life that my main character is a film director!

That’s so funny!

It's always difficult to do because with that kind of character, it could be obnoxious. I think I found a way. Mathieu told me one day that the best European actor we ever had was Marcello Mastroianni. An actor who was not afraid of being ridiculous and so beautiful at the same time. I think Mathieu has learned something from Mastroianni for sure.

He is your Mastroianni.

Oh yeah. He is not Jean-Pierre Leaud. He is definitely Mastroianni.

Speaking of Jean-Pierre and Truffaut, back in 2005 when you came to Brooklyn, you showed double bill of MISSISSIPPI MERMAID and THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS instead of your movies when asked about your retrospective. Your cinephilia is well known. This year you are here for your real retrospective. What would you have shown in place of your films if you had a chance?

Funny you ask me that question. I was supposed to present a double feature at Metrograph but because of my schedule, I had to cancel it. I was going to show Frances Ha by Noah Baumbach which I adore and The Earrings of Madame de… by Ophüls. Both heroines with no full names.

That would’ve been really excellent!

You showed your admiration for Wes Anderson and Tarantino. Who are some of your favorite contemporary directors nowadays?

Right now a lot of them for sure. One of the best directors alive is Jia Zhangke, of course. I didn’t get a chance to see his new film (Mountains May Depart) but I am seeing it tomorrow. I really have a high hopes for it because I heard about it a lot and I just couldn’t see it because of my schedule.

It's fantastic!

I am also very interested in seeing the new Scorsese series Vinyl. I heard a lot of good things about that and I can’t wait to see it.

I’m really happy that you have a very strong, mature generation of filmmakers working here in America. You've always had Hollywood but today you have Tarantino - I loved Hateful Eight, Paul Thomas Anderson, who is so fascinating, and you have Noah Baumbach, whose films I love. You have a very solid generation of directors, Wes Anderson being one of them.

That’s a great affirmation of American cinema from a reputable cinephile as yourself. One film I really loved last year was EDEN by Mia Hansen-love.

She has a new one out: L’avenir. The one that was in Berlin?

The one with Isabelle Huppert?

Yeah the one with Huppert. I haven’t seen it yet.

Me neither but I am dying to. I really loved EDEN. When I was watching MY GOLDEN DAYS--

Eden is a great film. A great film.

I can see the correlation with your film and EDEN.

I love that you mention her because she is the most important talent today. She stands alone in a way in France. She is so peculiar and singular…I was not lucky enough to catch her art in previous films before but after I watched Eden…oh I love that movie! Now I know I am a fan.

What’s the name of your new script?

Ismael and the Ghosts.

And it’s going to be Mathieu who’s going to be playing the director?

Oh I don’t know. I don’t write scripts with particular actors in mind anymore. I try not to do new projects with actors I already worked with. But I love him so perhaps he will be in it.

It’s been really honor to talk to you. As a fellow cinephile, you are an inspiration to me with your enthusiasm and your filmmaking. I loved JIMMY P and hope you make another film in the States. It will be fascinating.

Thank you. It will happen one way or another.

Finding EDEN: Interview with Félix de Givry and Sven Hansen-Løve

French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve's new film Eden, an ambitious survey of the hedonistic 90s French club music scene, as well as poignant observation on life and time passing, was one of my favorite films I saw last year. To promote its theatrical release in the US, the film's star Félix de Givry and co-writer/DJ Sven Hansen-Løve (and brother of Mia) were in town. I was very eager to talk about the film and the 90s with the two.

I love when things get nerdy in interviews. Obviously de Givry and Hansen-Løve knew what they were talking about but you can tell they are very passionate about what they do. This is one interview I'll remember fondly in the years to come.


I talked with Mia (Hansen-Løve) when she was here for her last film, GOODBYE FIRST LOVE. And she mentioned about EDEN back then, in 2012. How did this project come about?

Sven Hansen-Løve (from herein, SHL): It was really her idea first. She did three films and was at a crossroad in her career and she wanted to do something different. Her first three movies are sort of trilogy- sharing rather similar themes, you could say.

Right, right.

SHL: She was very interested in trying to do something with music. A film where the music is very important, almost like a character. So from one idea to another, she came to the idea of making a film about our generation, set in the 90s especially. It was different then.

The diversity of electronic music always fascinated her and that's how it all started. And since I was a part of that scene she asked me if I wanted to collaborate with her and give her some insights and anecdotes into the era. So it started just like that. And after a while she also wanted me to write. So I started writing.

Félix, you are basically playing 15-20 years of Sven's life. It's a big responsibility. What did you guys talk about prior and during the filming?

Félix de Givry (from herein FdG): I mostly talked with Mia because we always imagined the character as a fictional one, never as a precise portrayal of Sven's life or anything. Everything is sort of blurry- blurring the boundary between fiction and reality is what Mia likes. I think she feels assured in that space in between in a way. We had a long time before we started filming. Strangely, we did a lot of readings but also talked about a lot of different things - characters from other films, books....

With Sven, we mostly talked about stuff surrounding the film, you know, like, souvenirs, mementos from that era. I talked with his friends, studied all those pictures and footage. He gave me the comic book that is in the film- it was like digging into the background of the background. We never really talked about the character and it's funny because, those personal stuff we talked about after the movie was made, as if we could trust each other. Most recently we talked about relationships and stuff like that, right Sven?

(Sven nods.)

So you are talking about friendship beyond the film.

FdG: Yeah.

I asked Olivier (Assayas, Hansen-Løve's husband) about sharing actors with Mia. Coming off of his APRES MAI (SOMETHING IN THE AIR), how did it come about that Mia chose you for the lead role?

FdG: So the whole story was that one of my friends was stopped in the streets for a street casting and she called me because I too wanted to become an actor. She said, "Oh there is this guy Olivier Assayas. He did Carlos and whathaveyou." So he did a casting on my friend and I met Antoinette Boulat, the casting director. So I went through many steps to get the lead role (Gilles) until Olivier offered me another role that I refused.

You did?

FdG: Yeah I told him that I felt closed to the leading role, because he hesitated between me and the other actor. In his mind Clément was younger  and more right for the role-

That's what Olivier said. That you were great, but he was looking for someone younger for the role of Gilles. (the role eventually went to Clément Metayer.)

FdG: I think at the end he was the right choice for the film. So I had a very small part in Something in the Air.

And then I left because my school and I lived in LA for one year. And Antoinette kept sending me emails about Mia's film. But I was still in LA so I politely declined. But after I got back to Paris in June, as soon as I landed at the airport, we did a casting session. By then Mia had seen my audition tapes for Olivier. I think she had that movie with me in her head for a long time.

Sven, I think you and I are from the same generation. I wasn't a raver but more into grunge in the 90s, just because I was in Seattle at the time. But can you tell what French Touch is, for people who don't know it?

SHL: French Touch is a subgenre of house music. House music was born at the end of the 80s in the States. So it's an American music. But it's always interesting because it goes back and forth between Europe and the States. House was born because black musicians discovered electronic music from Kraftwerk and even some older stuff than that, like early French electronic music which was not a dance music. They then had an idea of mixing this with their own music- soul, disco. The idea was to use computer generated music but bring it down to classic black music- soul, jazz, gospel... everything.

And then it went back to Europe. It had to do with many DJs traveling also. So in France there were these talented young guys, like Daft Punk and others, who really like house music but wanted something different. And it was also the dawn of sampling. The hip hop guys had sampler machine but others wanted to use it not only in hip hop but for music you can dance to in clubs. So these young French people used the sampler on disco - it had a very simple beat and the sample goes in and out - it's easier get in and to dance to. It's more mainstream version of house music. Daft Punk built upon this into their own success. I think they are the pioneers of the French Touch.

But then some other artist arrived and made it a little different - Dmitri from Paris and so on. The idea was always making their own version of house.

Would Air fit in this category?

SHL: Yeah. Of course their music is a bit different. They arrived to the scene a little later. And there is Phoenix, also from the same time and affiliated with the genre even though they play rock music. I know it's getting kind of complicated.

FdG: But they are all French.

SHL: Right. First of all they are French. And even though they are not house, but electronic also-

FdG: And synth.

SHL: And they use synthesizer. It's computer generated in a way.

FdG: And they are homemade as well. They are done in their bedrooms.

SHL: That's right. Home studios.

I think Sven and I are about the same age, You are much younger. How do you know about Garage & 90s music?

FdG: I have my own music label. I am interested in all the stuff we just talked about. The people in my generation listened to Air, Phoenix, Daft Punk and there are others too - Justice and the whole Ed Banger (record label) groups. It's not mainstream culture but it's not underground either. But they are not snobs. They enjoy their moderate success and fame.

I think there are two sides on where my passion lies: I discovered doing the film that there are underground roots in garage and the other is my passion for electronic music that I grew up listening to. Nowadays, you just choose what kind of electronic music you want to listen to, you know. Even the pop music uses that computer sampled, compressed sound.

What was the hardest part of being in this film as an actor?

FdG: When I read the script, couple of things stood out for me- one is in one of the first scenes. It's after the party in the submarine and my character Paul is in the woods and was told to listen to the silence. There's bird chirping, noise then silence. And the time passes and at the end when Paul breaks down on the floor and asking for silence. And for me that was the key to key moment for the film, for this character. Because it's a character who lives in constant noise. And noise kind of polluted his vision. He got lost in a big washing machine you know- his clubbing, nightlife and drugs... So the idea of silence was extremely interesting for me. Because the character I think he makes it at the end as a writer. In writing, it's so much about silence.

So that scene when Paul has sort of a breakdown and was laying on the floor: it was also one shot- there was no movement in this apartment where we had been for four days, shot many different scenes - that was a tough scene.They proposed to me to use eyedrops so I can pretend to cry, I really didn't want to do that. It's so Hollywood fabrication thing to do.

I noticed that. Because in Hollywood movies  what you usually see is a single tear rolling down on a hero's face. Very stoic. Couple of scenes I remember where you cry, you cover your face. And that's what people do in real life.

FdG: Right. People are not like, aaaahh (throwing hands in the air). Emotions are overplayed sometimes.

I thought it was much more real how you did it.

FdG: I really cried.

Aw.

FdG: Anyway I realized that I need to change my way of crying. It's really not possible to show exactly how I cry. (laughs.)

Mia told me that the film was going to be in two parts. And  obviously the film is in two parts but not two separate movies. Can you tell me how it didn't happen that way?

SHL: Well she had this crazy ambition to do two films. The reason also was she had a lot of materials. When the first draft was done, it was very very long because she wanted to keep everything. But nobody would produce two films on a topic like that. If it was an action movie then no problem but some intimate movie about DJs, it would've been very difficult to finance.

We also tried to pitch it as a TV series and gave the script to TV channels but they didn't want to do it. So at some point we realized that it won't be two films. It was just too ambitious. So we cut the script a lot.

It is still very ambitious though I mean it's a huge movie. I'm amazed she pulled it off.

What I love about Mia's films is the passage of time portrayed before your eyes. How difficult was it portraying older man?

FdG: Obviously it was tough. Sometimes we were shooting Paul in different ages the same day. But I think there is also a subtext about the character not growing up. That there is something about Paul being steady in his unsteadiness. When he is in his twenties I feel close to that so it's not really difficult to portray him. When he is in his late 30s, 40s, it's also easy because I know Sven, even though it's not him I'm portraying, I can feel who he is. It's inbetween ages that's harder - late 20s and 30s. But in the end, in terms of Sven's life that's when he was most lost, not really knowing where he is at, wasn't a problem, I think.

You think it's a 90s generation thing that you do what you love to do or you become a slacker?

SHL: What is a slacker?

A person who doesn't work for the Man and just floats around.

SHL: I don't think it's a 90s thing. The difference is that back then, we were not as anxious about our future than young people right now. The time was a little more positive and optimistic. Even though I was living day to day, I wasn't worried about the future too much. I thought everything would work itself out at the end. Maybe I didn't ask questions that I need to ask much earlier.

Do you think that your generation is a lot more anxious?
FdG: Yeah. It's not really about expectations but more about anxiety which is hard to explain. Even in partying, dancing to techno or house, there was the feeling of opening to the world back then. Now they party to protect themselves. And the drugs we have nowadays compared to the ones back then, is something to do at a moment when you want to protect yourself.

It's more of an escape than pleasure.

FdG: Yeah exactly. For me it's not very healthy the way people are partying nowadays. I know a lot of my friends are partying like 70 hours in a row, never stopping. I'm pretty sure that happened in the 90s too but it was not the same relationship at all.

It was more fun in the 90s?

FdG: Yeah, I think it was more real, hedonistic.

Robert Creeley's The Rhythm- the cyclical nature of life just fits perfectly for the ending. Was it your idea to put that in the film?

SHL: No. But  I take the credit for introducing Robert Creeley to my sister. I think she was reading the anthology of his poems when we were writing the script. I think she found that particular poem The Rhythm really matched with the theme of the film.

How about a short animated phoenix in the beginning?

FdG: Well Paul is on drugs. Sometimes you see swirls in the corner of your eyes in the morning after you are out all night. Mia was really keen on having that in the beginning and not have any following explanations.

SHL: Also I think Paul was having this dreamy life back then- clubbing and doing drugs. It was a small indication of his dreamy state.

I thought it was more to do with Phoenix rising. That at the end he becomes a writer, that in a way he is reborn as another artistic person.

FdG/SHL: Yeah that too.


Eden opens across the U.S. on Friday, June 19 by Broad Green Pictures. Please checkout dates for your city at Broad Green Pictures website.


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