In an interview with the “world”, the actor and director of “the innocent” explains that he wanted to make a turning film not devoid of a sentimental dimension.
Interview By
of autobiographical inspiration, the Innocent, the fourth feature film directed by Louis Garrel, recounts a robbery in an organized gang, without sacrificing the interest of the filmmaker and actor for the art of seduction and romantic torments. He explains his choices to us.
Your mother, Brigitte Sy, led theater workshops in prison for twenty years and married a man behind bars when you were 18 years old. She pulled a film, “Les Mains Libres”, in 2010. To what extent “the innocent” does it answer?
We can say that it is the counterchamp from the point of view of the child. In this sense, my film has something that is the lightness of the first shows made of adventure, suspense, comedy or even vaudeville that we see with his parents.
My characters go through dramatic moments of life – Michel (Roschdy Zem) comes out of prison and Abel (Louis Garrel) lost his wife -, but the film does not work according to a pathetic regime. My mother, on the other hand, did not recognize herself…
Why did you choose the genre of the thriller to tell the weaving of these new intimate and family links around Michel?
By playing with the references of robbery films – the dramatic intensity that accelerates, the characters who live stronger and stronger – I wanted the narration to be used only in the cinema, so that this story is accessible to as many people as possible.
I also wanted to make a thriller on the side of the thugs, without a police officer, so that the spectators become accomplices of the crime. However, it was important not to betray the sentimental lyricism that belongs to life.
What were your sources of inspiration?
The ultimate Razzia (1956), by Stanley Kubrick, in which the machinery of a breakage is disturbed because of the presence of a woman. There are also the strangers in the city (1955), by Richard Fleischer, the films of Jean-Pierre Melville and Ocean’s Eleven (2001), by Steven Soderbergh. When I was a child, I spent a lot of time with former robbers that my mother invited home. By discussing with them, I was able to feel how the film figure of the bandit could inspire people who had spent years in prison. The reference: the recurrence (1978), by Ulu Grosbard, with Dustin Hoffman. Very realistic.
How did you prepare the filming of the long robbery sequence in the parking lot of a restorout?
I asked Jean-Claude Pautot, a former detainee who did twenty-five years in prison [Author of Facing the Wall, Casterman, 2017] to help me build a model with the location of the truck and the restaurant window. Then, I asked old thugs what they would do in place of the characters, then I filmed them for an hour around this miniature decor.
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