Live By Night

Released to much critical derision the fourth film directed by Ben Affleck, Live By Night is adapted for the screen by the leading actor from a novel by Dennis Lehane, tells a fictional story of booze running during prohibition era America which starts in Boston (Affleck's home town) and ends in Tampa, Florida following Joe Coughlin who works for an Irish firm but after falling for the boss' girl he ends up in prison before turning to the Italian mafia which leads him to the South.

Following the lambasting aimed at Ben Affleck for taking on the role of Batman in the much reviled Dawn of Justice directed by Zach Snyder, there has been a slow step of backlash at Affleck who had become a darling after winning an Oscar for Argo.

Affleck does not do many favours with this adaptation, which could have done with perhaps a co-writer to help shape the script better and not have it become the Affleck show has he ticks off ladies man, charmer, good in a fight, good with a gun; he ends up as the gentleman who has to raise his son and will not kill someone who needs to be killed for his job because he all of a sudden grows a moral fibre.  Either Affleck had to give his character a little bit of nastiness or conflict instead of being able to leave the gang at film's end or he should have asked another actor to play the leading role.

It is a shame because the film is a victory as a production itself with gorgeous photography by Robert Richardson, vintage costumes and note perfect set design. This is married with some fine supporting work by Chris Messina as Dago and Elle Fanning who instills some real layers in her born again Christian envangelist Loretta Figgis becoming the performer her innocent self wanted to be.

Based on Dennis Lehane's novel

Running at close to two hours there is a sharper more efficient film somewhere here if Affleck had not been given the world to act, write, produce and direct, much like Orson Welles, Affleck has been given the world's biggest train set to play with but has failed to build up a significant head of steam on this occasion.

You cannot fault his ambition when movie making sometimes falls prey to remakes, rehashes and retreads in this age of instant gratification. Affleck aimed to make a film about failed ambition and belonging, following the box office failure of the film he finds himself ironically producing his own failure, which is a shame.

Live By Night is released on DVD and Blu-Ray from Warner Bros. on Monday 22nd May

Youth

Paolo Sorrentino is one of the most enigmatic filmmakers in Europe yet alone Italy incorporating a mixture of tales of an ageing man in Central Europe embraced by the performances of Toni Servillo in The Consequences of Love and The Great Beauty. 

Sorrentino has attempted English language film before with the Sean Penn vehicle This Must be the Place, a film using the oeuvre of David Byrne's Talking Heads back catalogue as a springboard. He returned for the aforementioned Great Beauty before this latest venture, Youth starring Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel.



They both play 80 year old veterans of entertainment who meet for their annual two week holiday at an elite spa in Switzerland. Caine plays a composer who could have been as great as Stravinsky yet is famous for a more popular composition he wrote for his singer wife from whom he is now estranged. Keitel is a film director who with two co-writers and an acting duo is attempting to create one last masterpiece to make with his ageing muse, played by a fleeting and glowing Jane Fonda.





Whilst we might be witnessing the twilight of these two men, they are surrounded by youth in terms of the young people who serve them or give them massages, Caine's daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz) who is going through a separation from her husband who has fallen for a younger woman. 

Paul Dano, an exciting young American actor portrays a young accomplished actor who is most famous for playing a robot in a science fiction franchise picture; he would prefer to take risks with roles and his career, which leads to him taking on a future role as a famous world leader to show his range and craft, which shows an over reach on his behalf.
This pervading sense of youth and innocence is in stark contrast to the ageing men and the manifestation of end of existing exhibited by the inclusion of a man resembling Diego Maradona. While Caine and Keitel's character can continue to exist in the popular culture through composing or directing which has no age restrictions only a restriction by an individual's ambition, whereas Maradona has a limited shelf life due to physical demands. Even the newly crowned Miss Universe is restricted, she may want to get into acting as she states but she unfortunately will only ever be Miss Universe.



Keitel is keen to point out that all you have are memories and the craving for creativity and embracing your strengths, not yo be pigeon holed by one piece of work. 



Sorrentino has moulded a film that is about celebrity - a subject that fascinates him - ageing, loss and friendship. Caine and Keitel are two titans of screen acting and cleverly have never suffered by such pigeon holing in their CV, and their depiction of friendship is portrayed effectively with genuine affection and emotion.

A wonderfully odd and eccentric film with laugh out loud moments it can be included in the great pantheon of hotel movies (Lost in Translation remains the top), a hotel allowing fleeting friendships and moments. The film is stylistically shot with a great sense of space and environment, at times you sense the people could even be there against their will in a dystopic world, yet Sorrentino has a sure hand over proceedings helped by an ensemble cast of a refined quality and an eclectic soundtrack to boot.

Youth is available on Digital download from 23rd May and on DVD and Blu-ray from 30th May from Studiocanal.

Ran - Akira Kurosawa - 30th Anniversary Re-release

Celebrating its 30th anniversary of release, Akira Kurosawa's final cinematic masterpiece RAN is being re-released on the big screen and enjoying a DVD and Blu-ray release in a new 4K restoration.

Based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, Ran is considered one of the greatest war films of all time. Fittingly the 4K release coincides with the 400th anniversary celebrations of William Shakespeare.

In the final years of Kurosawa's beautiful creative mind, he saw fit to create a colourful landscape within the Japanese hills as a small family dispute with far reaching scope takes over the country.

Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai – Yojimbo, Kagemusha) an ageing warlord who, after spending his life consolidating his empire, decides to abdicate and divide his kingdom amongst his three sons, Taro (Akira Terao - Letter from the Mountain, Dreams), Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu – The Man in White, Red Shadow: Akakage) and Saburo (Daisuke Ryû - Tono monogatari, Gojo reisenki: Gojoe). When Hidetora’s youngest son Saburo voices concerns about the wisdom of his father’s plan, claiming that treachery within the family will be inevitable, Hidetora mistakes these comments for a threat and banishes him. This allows Taro and Jiro to take the reigns of power unopposed, leading to a brutal and bloody struggle to win absolute power.

The richness of the colour palette is on display from the first meeting of Hidetora as he decrees over his sons his wish to pass on his kingdom to Taro - while the warlord oversees all in his glorious white robe his three sons sit in the primary colours of blue, yellow and red. Saburo sits in red which is the
colour of red and anger, and his banishment prompts the kind of bloody that 16th century civil war is
renowned for.

Kurosawa was always known for becoming the first Eastern director to have his work transported and transplanted to the West and most especially the American Hollywood system in particular the western genre where his work was impressed upon John Ford and Howard Hawks. Famously, his film The Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven in 1960.

Yet perhaps the influence of Western Hollywood cinema came back to Kurosawa, in particular the huge epic sweep of films like David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and Richard Attenborough's Gandhi.

Majestic in its scope and a finale to a tremendously creative career which proved that film language can be universal in garnering an international appreciation of his work, Ran stands a fitting monument to Akira Kurosawa's career.

Studiocanal/Independent Cinema Office (ICO) re-issue the film on a 4K restoration in UK cinemas on April 1st, with a Blu-ray/DVD release on May 2nd with a wealth of bonus features available
www.studiocanal.co.uk

Manakamana

Out on DVD and VOD from 9th February 2015 from Dogwoof, Manakamana is a stunningly original cinematic experience.  The film follows pilgrims as they make a journey to an ancient Nepalese temple by way of cable car to worship.

The journey up and down takes a total of 11 minutes, therefore the directors Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, take the approach of positioning a stationary 16mm camera in front of the varying commuters.

 

From an ageing grandfather and his grandson, to a young married couple, to a trio of elderly women who tellingly comment on how much things have changed, 'It used to take me three days to get up here'; to a herd of goats.  The first half of the film follows people going up, and the second half follows travellers going down with an eventual selection of passengers to book end the film.

Some critics have commented on the cyclical nature of the cable car being documented in this film, whereas I would prefer the more appropriate gesture of the film being literally about how life can be up and down, and how easy it is to forget to enjoy the ride.

Reminiscent of artistic installations but another step forward in the work offered by James Bening (13 Lakes/ RR) this film is nevertheless just as meditative in forcing the audience to accept the period of quiet and contemplation in a dark space.

At the start of every 11 minute segment, there is a moment of dark when the cable car is being loaded up with next passengers and as it pushes out into the light we are blinded by the light and then have to adjust to the new characters presented towards us; these changes initiate a response in the audience to participate in the journey.  Sometimes though the journey is reward in itself.

This is an intelligent movie that coupled with stunning landscape cinematography must be seen to be believed.

Manakamana is out on DVD and VOD from Dogwoof from Monday 9th February

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 40th Anniversary

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the film's original theatrical release, Second Sight is proud to release The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Blu-ray in a stunning 4K restoration and 7.1 audio mix, making the film look and sound like never before.

The film is widely considered to be one of the finest horror films ever made and the infamy of the film's release, where it was banned in certain sections of America, has not diminished in recent years.

Directed by Tobe Hooper, who does so with great visual panache and integrity, it remains a wonder why Hooper did never become the bigger director this film promised, and instead became reliant upon working for people he influenced such as Steven Spielberg.

The film is the atypical horror movie sharing the generic conventions that was initiated by Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in 1960 - the final girl, the remote location, fear of the unknown and unknowing stranger who thinks he is normal and audience intrigue, and dare we say empathy, for the villain.

Leatherface was quite probably the first iconic horror character, a forerunner for Michael Myers, Freddie Kruger, Pinhead and others. The iconography of this masked villain and the image of him twirling his trusted chainsaw in the setting Texas sun helped the film become a success; a success mirrored by a film released the previous year The Exorcist.

That film initiated the audiences apparent insatiable appetite for evil to appear on screen and the need to know more about evil intentions; the film like Psycho used supposed non-fiction material as basis for their screenplays. The legend of Ted Bundy is omnipresent over both pictures.

The film will be released as a two-disc limited edition Steelbook Blu-ray, with brand new artwork and stacked by brand new bonus features, a standard two-disc Blu-ray with reversible sleeve featuring new artwork and original US poster. All will be available from 17th November.

Features include new audio commentary with Tobe Hooper along with three other commentaries featuring among others Gunnar Hansen who played Leatherface. Numerous documentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes also feature.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre still maintains the power to shock, disturb and horrify. The chance to see it in the best restorated version ever is one not to be missed, not just for horror film aficionados but for those interested in the history and power of the motion picture.

Two disc Limited Edition Steelbook Blu-ray £22.99
Two disc Standard Edition Blu-ray £19.99

www.secondsightfilms.co.uk

Follow me @NextToTheAisle 

Grand Central

 

GRAND CENTRAL stars two of France’s most exciting and talented actors - Léa Seydoux, winner of the Palme d’Or in 2013 for her stunning performance in Blue Is The Warmest Colour, and Tahar Rahim who received many accolades for his gripping performance in A Prophet including two César Awards and Best Actor from the European Film Awards. 

Gary (Tahar Rahim) is young, agile and a quick learner.  He's one of those guys who's never been promised anything.  After a succession of odd jobs, he’s taken on at a nuclear power plant.  There, amongst the reactors and their high doses of radioactivity, he finally finds what he's been looking for: money, a team, a family.  But the team also includes Karole (Léa Seydoux), the wife of his colleague, Toni (Denis Menochet), with whom he falls in love.

While the film may follow the familiar narrative arc of forbidden love and thou shall not covet thy neighbours wife, the film is elevated beyond the average by having two starlets such as Rahim and Seydoux, who are head and shoulders above the rest of French actors currently.  Menochet does well with the idiot husband role, Menochet starred in the brilliant French drama The Returned, which has provided a springboard to many a French actor in recent years.

At times beautifully shot when in the countryside, and the young director Rebecca Zlotowski (Belle epine) has an observant eye to relationships and garners electrifying performances from the actors involved, evoking passion and a certain enigmatic quality not to be missed.

The film is released on Home Entertainment DVD and Download on Monday 10th November by StudioCanal. 

www.studiocanal.co.uk

White Dog

In continuation of their fine Masters of Cinema series, Eureka Video is releasing Samuel Fuller's forgotten controversial title White Dog on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday 31st March.

Fuller's film from 1980 tells the story of a white dog who when taken in by a would-be Hollywood starlet Julie Sawyer (Kristy McNichol) after hitting him one night, realises that her new best friend only seems to like people of a certain skin colour.  The dog is called a white dog (despite its white Alsatian breeding) because it has been trained to bark, sneer and even kill black people.

Julie takes the dog to a specialist trainer called Keys (Paul Winfield), himself a black man who attempts to train the racism out of the dog through aversion therapy and feeding it hamburgers from his black hand.

There are obstacles as with any psychological evaluation, one jail break from the dog one night results in him chasing a black man and killing him in a church.  The symbolism was never lost on Fuller.  Yet we never see the full bloody gore of the attack, the barking and biting is all done in the edit, and Winfield conveys the full horror of the assault through his look alone.  Fuller holds on Keys when he comes across the body in the church and in a long take, allows Winfield to show us the horror in his eyes.

Winfield a stalwart of American prime-time television throughout the 1980s and 90s was one of those amazing well-spoken black actors of this era along with James Earl Jones, Billy Dee Williams and Carl Weathers; all men of integrity and intelligence without resorting to physical domination in mark contrast to say Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

Fuller who wrote the screenplay with a young Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential), made a taut and tight thriller that is small on exposition but helped by a stellar cast who do a lot with limited roles and create a world of fear and the unknown due to the odd nature of the canine attacker.

The film was vilified upon completion and not granted a release due to the supposed sensationalist nature of the material and a NAACP fear that the film would stoke up racist violence and allow racists to train racist dogs.  The film was essentially shelved and following the upheaval surrounding the two and four hour cuts of his World War Two opus The Big Red One (1980), Fuller was all but done in Hollywood.

The film is not racist but instead an exploration of the creation of racism and the handling of it.  The story is about a white girl who seeks help from a black man.  Told with the thrilling use of close-ups on McNichol to convey her fear and worry, and editing expertly to convey the rage within the white dog of the title.

Ripe for a re-appraisal from one of the unheralded masters of American cinema, White Dog is a brilliant evocation of racism and psychology dealt with intelligence and finesse.

White Dog is out on Blu-Ray and DVD from Eureka Video on Monday 31st March

Watch a trailer of White Dog here

The Kings of Summer

Jordan Vogt-Rhodes' film The Kings of Summer was an audience favourite at Sundance this year, and following a brief cinema run it gets a DVD release where it might garner the more wide-ranging audience it deserves.

Utilising a script by Chris Galletta that is both funny and sentimental in equal doses, the film tells the story of three teenage boys in surburban Ohio, who upset by the actions of their parents and another boring summer decide to go live in the woods where they will build a house and live off the land for the summer.

We know that coming-of-age films from Stand By Me follow this thread of thought, whereas that stellar work was more a journey for the boys as they went to discover a body, those boys were always wanting to return home; here the boys are just rebelling as they are not happy with their current situation.

Joe (Nick Robinson) is dismissed at school and wants to be one of the boys, plus he and his Dad, Frank (Nick Offerman) are at continual loggerheads since the passing of Joe's mother.  During a game of Monopoly, Frank swindles some property prompting Joe to phone the police reporting a theft.  Patrick (Gabriel Basso) is the jock with an ankle injury meaning he has to wear a boot all summer; he is not happy at home as his parents drive him crazy, his mother is played by Megan Mullally of Will and Grace fame.  They are joined by the eccentric Biaggio (Moises Arias) who provides the most laughs by way of his odd behaviour.

Galletta's script is quite funny in places and maintains that flow of laughs throughout the film, whereas some scripts can suffer from a willingness and need to get sentimental and dramatic in tone.  The ending involving a scare with nature is played straight but the back and forth of Joe and Frank's dialogue helps the action bounce due to the already cantankerous nature of their relationship.

Special credit to the cinematographer, Ross Reige who shoots with a great eye and gets some great shots in the woods where the boys reside even providing a great crash zoom and focus during the blowout keg party at the start of the film.

Entertaining, well acted and a great addition to the pantheon of coming-of-age films.

The Kings of Summer is out now on DVD (£15.99RRP) from StudioCanal, my thanks to EM Foundation for the screening disc

Casa de Lava

The erstwhile Portugese director, Pedro Costa's second feature length film Casa de Lava is released by Second Run DVD today.

Marianna (Ines de Medeiros) is a nurse who escorts a comatose Leao (Isaach de Bankole) from Portugal to his homeland of the Cape Verde Islands.  When they arrive, she is practically dumped by the helicopter pilots who leave her to return to an undisclosed war.  They eventually get moved to a hospital, but no-one will claim Leao stating that no-one knows him.  

While Leao lays asleep Marianna wanders around the volcanic island, slowly becoming mesmerised by the people and the sights.  Most notably she revels at an all-night party, yet moments of fear remain from the presence of rabid dogs.

This film is still expressive of a director finding his feet and attempting to make his voice heard above the crowd.  Like most European auteurs, Costa has an observant camera that allows action to take place in the frame and not pursuing a reaction although his films do sometimes harness documentary sensibilities in their overall outcome.

Costa was abandoned himself as a child, so the yearning for a nuclear family is apparent in the traits of his characters, who he uses as versions of himself - they are searching for a home or a settled place.  Marianna is a lost soul, lost in the sense that she is far from home and in a strange land; Leao is also lost in the sense that he has not been found by anyone who can claim him, and so both are of no fixed abode or location - Costa would return to these traits of loneliness and alienation in his masterpiece Colassal Youth (2006)

Marianna is another of the strong female characters who are independent in spirit and conviction.  As a nurse, she knows nothing about the people she treats, the week on the Casa de Lava allows her eyes to be opened.  Her independent spirit is helped by having her wear this red vibrant dress signifying both fire and warmth - these little touches by Costa marks him out as a keen observer of people, much like his fellow countryman Manuel de Oliveria.

There are moments of melodrama you would anticipate in European auteur cinema, yet this is not over-reached due to the placing of Marianna/Leao in a strange land.  By stumbling into a place of purgatory, people are most scared of dying and the unknown hence the tentative treatment towards strangers yet the natives are seemingly accepting of their lot in life.

The use of landscape and environment is so richly established it becomes a character in its own right as well as a notable narrative device; the human characters act like they do because of the location and vice versa.

Casa de Lava (1994) is released on DVD by Second Run Films today, Monday 24th September and on the disc there are many features; a new HD master of the film especially for this release; an interview with the director discussing the film; an interview with cinematographer Emmanuel Machuel and a new essay by renowned film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.

www.secondrundvd.com

Les Enfants du Paradis

Originally released in 1945 at the tail end of the Second World War whilst Paris was still burning, Marcel Carne's film Les Enfants du Paradis is considered one of the greatest if not the most notable French film of all time, in the same vein and scale as Hollywood's Gone With The Wind from six years previously.

It is a rare slice of art house cinema from the French 1940s and tells the story of Parisian courtesan Garance (Arletty) and the four men who are in love with her - an aristocrat, a thief, an actor and a mime - based upon actual larger than life people from the 1820s and 1830s, where the film is based.

Carne originally released the film into two parts - beating Harry Potter and Twilight by 70 years - Boulevard du Crime and L'Homme Blanc.  As Paris was still under Nazi occupation, Carne attempted to get past censors by splitting the film in two, and then restore the film to its original length once the war was over.

It is important to understand and appreciate the lengths Carne went to in his production.  The sheer scale of the film in terms of extras, production, costume and art direction is immense and to consider that this film was done under enormous levels of oppression is all the more staggering when you see the final results.

The script written by Carne and in collaboration with Jacques Prevert, a surrealist poet is indicative of the input.  The film feels like one long poem visually and sonically due to the sumptuous score by Joseph Korma.  Carne's vision of Paris is a romantic notion of fonder times and persuasions.  The fact that the film was made shows the defiant French backbone which withstood the Nazi invasion.

Whilst the film is at times a bum-numbing 190 minutes, it does suffer from a pacing issue after all the main male characters are introduced; but the richness of the production wins out in the end, rewarding those who do stick it out.

Carne mixes all form of cinema and artistry; great soundtrack, wonderful acting with piercing dialogue and even mime performed by Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault), especially in one of the opening scenes when he performs a sequence to save Garance from a wrongful accusation of theft by a buffoon.  The scene is not rushed and allowed to gestate, to the benefit of all in view. We watch the mime, the audience in the square watch him, all are transfixed.

Carne would continue directing into the 1980s absorbing the bashing of La Nouvelle Vague, yet he would never hit the same heights of Les Enfants du Paradis - a wonderful and breathless love letter to Paris and France, when it most needed it.

Les Enfants du Paradis is released on two-disc DVD or Blu-ray by Second Sight Films on Monday 17th September.
My thanks to Aim Publicity for the check disc.

Project X

Nima Nourizadeh directs and Todd Phillips of The Hangover produces this tale of teenage debauchery shot through found-footage coverage of the best party in the history of house parties.

Starring Thomas Mann as Thomas, the loser son who has to look after the house whilst his parents are away celebrating their anniversary.  Influenced heavily by Costa (Oliver Cooper), a kid from Queens who has moved to middle America suburbia and finds himself at the bottom of the high school food chain, the boys decide to throw a party for all time.

What slowly becomes a small event to gain acceptance and cool credits, descends quickly into a flash mob of destruction as the whole school and neighbourhood attend the shin dig.  The boys fail to control the event, attempting to keep it solely in the garden and pool, quickly the party comes inside and the sheer level of damage done to the house is mind-boggling.

Whilst the party holds a purpose for the three lame boys to rise up in the ranks, the party holds no narrative thread and instead is just a basis for a string of skits and gimmicks that would be more at home on youtube clips, where people capture the moment or party tricks are shared with the world.

A nice romantic thread is forgotten about quickly, and the boys punishment for such a horrible display of recklessness and fecklessness is nothing more than a slap on the wrists.  In terms of a narrative thrust with traditional cause and effect, what effect does this party have on the community is forgotten about in the wake of having a good time.

In comparison to Superbad, the better attempt of losers attempting to gain some respect in high school, Project X is as lame as the characters it tries to put on a pedestal.

Project X is out on DVD on Monday 2nd July from Warner Bros

Man on a Ledge

The premise of this film is typical B-movie fodder, helped by the self-explanatory title (like Snakes on a Plane), you know what you are going to get.

Sam Worthington stars as Nick Cassidy, a former cop wrongly convicted who seemingly wants to end it all by jumping from the ledge of a high rise building in Manhattan.  Attempting to talk him down is psychologist Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks, always useful) but slowly like any good B-movie, it slowly shows you its hand by having layers.

Nick is in charge of a team hoping to rob a bank, a raid led by his younger brother Joey (Jamie Bell) and Angie (Genesis Rodriguez - who wears pink undies to the party)

This allows for a lot of action to take place cutting between the high rise exterior allowing for helicopter shots and vistas in contrast to the claustrophobic feel of the bank raid.  You can maybe be cynical with these heist films that require a genuine sense of detachment from reality - where everything has to go so smoothly for the whole plan to come together.  Yet unlike some films that overstay its welcome with an extended running time, this has a real zip to proceedings which keeps hold of your attention.

Nick has to stay on the ledge long enough to deflect attention from alarms and persuade the cops that his need to end his life is more important. Too some extents that is hard to believe, but in Sam Worthington there is a real everyman quality about him in all his performances, so convincing was he in a wheelchair during Avatar, you could sense his elation when he became his avatar.

A good solid supporting cast of Ed Harris, Ed Burns (doing his typical New Yourk bit as a grumbled cop), Kyra Sedgwick and Anthony Mackie, give a sense of reliability to a film that will give you exactly what it says on the tin.  Think of it as the Ronseal of movies.

Man on a Ledge is released by Entertainment One on DVD now

Bertrand Bonello Q&A

French director Bertrand Bonello returns with his fifth film, House of Tolerance (L’Apollonide), a languid yet compelling story of a Parisian brothel at the beginning of the 20th Century. Featuring an ensemble cast of female talent, including Hafsia Herzi and Jasmine Trinca, the story rigorously shows daily life in the house – the camaraderie, the anguish and the horrors of serving men in this age-old profession. Below, Bonello reports how the film came to him in a series of dreams, how scared he was working with a dozen women and gives an insight into his next film, a biopic of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.  

Q: What interested you about this era? 

A: I started to work on this because I really wanted to do a film with a bunch of young girls. And I didn’t want to do a film that would tell love stories today. So I tried to find a strong image of young girls, and then I came to this image of the girls in brothels in the beginning of the twentieth century. I had read some books and I was very impressed by their strength. So after that I started to do some research, and the second thing that really excited me was not prostitution but the location. The idea of setting up a film in a brothel…for me was a fantastic location for a movie, a fantastic place for cinema. 

Q: It feels very claustrophobic and oppressive inside. Was that the kind of atmosphere you were looking for? 

 A: Yes. For me the fact there is no possibility to go outside, and no windows opened, you’re cut from reality. The outside does not exist. So for me, it was the possibility to make a film that would become more and more mental to the brain! To me, the brothel is like a movie theatre. When you come into a movie theatre, there are no windows, you don’t hear the sound outside and you’re ready for fantasy. 

Q: How did you find working with all these women on set? 

 A: I was a little scared before. It’s twelve girls so you never know! But the casting was nine months, a very long casting, and I was very obsessed with finding good actress I like, but most of all finding the group. So I think I did, and they really got on together very, very well. I felt more like a football manager – though that’s eleven and not twelve! 

Q: Are many of the actresses well known in France?  

A: Only one – Hafsia Herzi, who won the César for the Kechiche film Couscous. And there is another one [Jasmine Trinca] who is Italian and very famous in Italy.  

Q: But there wasn’t any pressure to cast a well-known face in the film? 

A: Not too much, not too much. I accepted to meet some famous actresses, but the distributors agreed that they were not so good for the part. If you have someone too famous, it’s difficult to make a group, because you see just her.  

Q: You use split-screen and contemporary music at times. What was behind your stylistic choices? 

A: There were many things. First of all, I decided not to feel free about everything I wanted to put in the film. One fear when you make a film in one location is that it’s going to be theatrical. So I wanted to give myself the possibility to use all the tools of cinema. Split screen is one of them, and so are the flash-forwards. And for me, the split-screen was…I saw the film very much as a film of prison, and the split screen was like security cameras. This idea that you’re never alone; even in the bathroom there is someone watching you. And the music…it’s soul music from the Sixties. I don’t know why but for me the soul music represents very well the idea I had of this bunch of women in a brothel. Maybe because there is a relationship with slavery, maybe because it’s soul, but really the sound of the girls for me was this music. I don’t have a theory about why, it was just a sensation.  

Q: You also show a contemporary shot of Paris at the end. Why? 

A: Well, it’s a fake documentary – but it’s meant to show foreign students. It’s true that now, most prostitutes are from abroad. First of all, there is one character who is the same, and it shows that it was her destiny to be a prostitute for life. Even a hundred years after, she’s still a prostitute. It’s something about destiny. I like the idea that we showed it this way, because only cinema can do that. The other thing is, for me, I saw the film as a matrix. And how do you get out of a matrix at the end, and back to reality?  

Q: The most powerful image is the facial scar that Madeleine endures. Is it true that this was based on the Victor Hugo novel, L’Homme Qui Rit?  

A: In fact, the film that was made of the novel. It’s a film that was made in the twenties – The Man Who Laughs. It’s a silent film by Paul Leni. I saw that when I was a kid, and the images really stayed very strongly inside of me. When I started to write, three nights in a row I dreamed of this film. I don’t know why. So when I woke up on the fourth morning, I said ‘OK, I’m going to try to put it inside the film to see how it goes.’ And then as soon as I started to write the first sequence I had a skeleton for my film with this character.  

Q: Do you think because you were reading about the subject a lot, that’s why you were dreaming about it? 

A: Ha! Yeah, maybe. And this film of Paul Leni, it’s one my very few strong images from childhood, in terms of film. I saw it again when I was writing, to see if there were some details I could pick up. It’s a heartbreaking film.  

Q: Have you had any problems with censorship with the film?  

A: Not problems. A little bit in Asia. I don’t remember exactly which countries – I think Taiwan and Singapore. But the film also sold well abroad. I didn’t have many problems. I’ve had my problems with my other films, Tiresa and The Pornographer.  

Q: Obviously, you’re showing it exactly as it was, so the nudity is not gratuitous… 

A: Exactly. And at the same time, if you think about the film, there are no real sex scenes. So there’s no real point of using censorship. 

Q: And the men often seem to be clothed, with the women naked around them… 

A: Yes, that’s what I read. Even women, you see the breasts but they are not totally naked. They have so many clothes on them that if you get totally undressed, and dressed again, it takes a long time.  

Q: The women talk very frankly about sex. Why? 

A: I wanted to show that sex is an everyday job. There is nothing sacred about that. It’s just normal. Like if a baker was talking about his bread!  

Q: In England, at least, sex was never talked about then… 

A: In France also. At that time, even married couples, they didn’t see each other naked. They dressed under the sheets. Even in France, people were very shy. I think that’s why brothels existed.  

Q: Did doing the film change your views on prostitution? 

A: Well, it’s difficult to have one truth. It’s a very complicated subject. My opinion is that prostitution always existed and will always exist. So I think it’s worth trying to give these women the best working conditions, in terms of social help and health. It’s too difficult to close your eyes and say ‘I want to forbid prostitution.’ Closing your eyes is not a good solution!  

Q: Are you working on a new film now? 

A: Yes, I’m working on a biopic about the life of Yves Saint Laurent. It’s François Pinault who has got the rights to his life. We are half way through writing the script. And we are starting to do the casting, but I don’t think it will be someone famous.  

Q: What fascinates you about Laurent? 

A: I think he’s unique. I think he’s maybe the only one I can say who is not only a fashion designer, he’s a real artist. And he died of that.

House of Tolerance is released on DVD on Monday 28th May courtesy of Universal Pictures.