Kaur is Maki

8/11/2019 Kaur is Maki

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The earlier famous Le Havre film is Port of Shadows[38], but ofcourse only relatively because it is very much a studio film.That side of it is well disguised, it doesnt seem to be made in a studio at

all. A truly magnificent film.

Many associations to the history of French cinema come to thesurface in your film. What period it is set in?The period that any film is set in can always be determined by the carsyou see. The fact that people smoke a lot in bars points to 2007 orearlier, but not much earlier. If I consider its style, I guess it attempts tore-create some kind of neorealism in the French style. Vittorio de Sicaand Cesare Zavattini are lurking in the background, and then I strive togive its neorealism a Marcel Carn or Jacques Becker tone. The startingpointmine and the town itselfis a complete tabula rasa. One couldhave made it a Melville-type of film or something likeMiracle in Milan,or anything in between. I didnt choose a genre, I just started to write

and it turned out as an unashamedly optimistic fairytale.

When I write, I almost completely work in terms of my subconscious. Idigest the theme of the film and what I know of the basic story. Then Iwait for three months for my subconscious to finish its work. My writing

is very unanalytical, but the final outcome is a pretty precise script,regardless of whether its good or bad. The late Matti Pellonp usedexactly the same method as an actor. I gave him the script and he read itat once. Then he didnt touch it for three months until just prior to theshooting, mainly to learn the dialogue. He used his subconscious todevelop the character and to do all the work, like a lazy man would. Hissubconscious did all the work that a lesser actor wouldve burdened

himself with. I consider the subconscious the most ingenious andcheapest hireling you can have in this line of work.

The stylistic key to the film is a fairy-tale atmosphere, almost in aconfusing way.I was uncertain to the very end whether it would work. Theres no visual

splendor, either, since it would only serve to estrange. Above all Iwanted everyone to see the people. People are at their best when


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There is an insert of a TV documentary where a refugee center allegedlydoesnt meet adequate standards, and is then razed to the ground, with

nothing to replace it. Confronted with problems like this, Europe is plainhelpless. There is no other way than to continue this game of ping-pong:

people are returned and then they come back again, or new ones taketheir place. This is understandable from the systems point of view: if

half of Africa comes to a Europe thats already riddled withunemployment, how could there be work for anyone? The equation ispretty impossible.

At the moment, however, it is clearly a question of abandonment thatshould be against the Charter of the United Nations. And then in thebackground lies European colonialism. Why else would Africa be in thestate it is other than expressly as the result of the vestiges of colonialism,because Europe drew up arbitrary land borders and caused conflicts thatare still present there today? It is the product of the mindless greedwhen, mostly by the British, bizarre borders were drawn on the mapwith rulers, in contempt of tribes and traditions. The present-day faminesor situations like Darfur are also its consequences.

How do you manage crowd scenes? Youve claimed youre bad at

them, but you underestimate yourself. While filming The ManWithout a Past, during a scene with dozens of amateurs, I saw howlittle you directed things: the camera was turned on, there were justone or two takes, and the scene is precise as a ballet.I usually instruct individual people but when dealing with a crowd youjust have to somehow get them into the spirit. Crowd scenes are alwaysnerve-racking: you run out of time, the lights fading, plans fall apart.You almost have no option but to roll the camera and trust your luck.After all, I dont have any storyboards. The first shot leads to another,

and so on. Only when the previous shot is finished I start to plan thenext. And I dont believe storyboards would help. You can losesomething because you cant react to what the scene itself produces.

Shots mechanically prepared in advance turn against themselves. The


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film ends up feeling too well made. Just like when in period films peoplewear clothes that are too clean, or feature cars that are too shiny.

In several of your films you have had happy and unhappy endings

waiting in the wings side by side, before you made your finaldecision. Was this the case with Le Havre?No, in this one I thought Id radically place two happy endings one afterthe other. Its seldom done, so I upped the ante: the boys departure andthe miraculous recovery. Either one would do as a happy ending. Theending mightve been happy first and then unhappy, but I decided to go

full throttle with the fairy-tale aspect. Not even medical science meansanything.

One might say that there is a third happy ending, i.e., the final shotthat is almost an independent story. An Ozu shot.It is a perfect Ozu shot, and its intended to be. But it is impossible toanalyze influences. The head is a big cooking pot in which allingredients are haphazardly mixed: everything you have experienced,read, seen in films. Then you ladle it out with what I hope is some kindof logic. For instance, blue-gray is my basic set design color, and that isfrom Melville, and then I may add some red because a red teapot looks

good in Ozus films. I just use a fire extinguisher because our teaceremony is so underdeveloped.

The fundamental beauty of the film comes from the way the lovestory of the old married couple and their fight for self-respect andjustice tie into each other. How they are one and the same. The wifelies in the hospital, dying, the husband goes about his business. Justlike how in VigosLAtalante, the finest love scene is the one inwhich the main characters are not together but dream the same

dream.LAtalantewasnt consciously in my mind, but you know that I considerit to be the most beautiful film in the world. Ive even imported it a

couple of times. It is obvious that without the love story one wouldvebeen forced to toughen up the justice part, and the description of the


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system wouldve been harsher. The film as a whole would have been acouple degrees crueler.

Three of your films in a row now have centered on the theme of

death. The Man Without a Pastcould be read as the dream of adying man. The same applies to the ending of L ights in the Dusk: theman is very close to death, but hope arises in the final shot.It had two endings, one in which the man dies, and another in which hedoesnt. I shot them both, and I used them both. First he dies, and then

he takes her hand. But true: the theme does haunt in there; for people intheir twenties and thirties, death does not exist at all.

Your previous French film was La vie de Bohme. Is there any

continuity between these two films?Perhaps its a private joke but the main character is the same Marcel

Marx whose dreams of a successful career as an author in Paris havecollapsed. The same bohemian 20 years later. He has, in a way, given upall his hopes. And now he experiences a moral ascent in which, aftermany years, he starts to take responsibility for something. He has soughtthe lowest possible rung in society. He could get himself a betteroccupation and earn more money, but according to his own words, he

wants to be closer to the people. When he kneels at peoples feet, thatswhere he is most humble.

I came up with the idea of a shoe-shiner rescuing an African boy afterthe shoe-shiners all vanished in my Portuguese hometown a few yearsback. There was one left, and in order to give him some work I had myshoes polished, and when I watched, the rest was easy. When youre

able to place the main character somewhere, all the rest followsautomaticallyor almost automatically.

Ill now return to the human faces. The film contains quite a gallery

of characters, and one of the most difficult things to shoot: thecommunity of decent people. Or the image of a communityunknowingly acting in a spirit of kindness. The supporting rolesplayed by the fine French actors Pierre taix, Jean-Pierre Laud,


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and Jean-Pierre Darroussin, which seem small at first, are actuallyextremely emphatic. Darroussin, as a police officer, is almost adream image of an official who still retains an emotional life. He has morals. His feelings are not really shown, but they certainly

exist. The limited role of the doctor played by taix was simply due tothe fact that while writing the script I did not know that it would even bepossible to have him in the film.

When I asked Laud to play the main role inI Hired a Contract Killer in1990, I dont think hed been in a leading role for years. I think it was

the first film in which he did not in a sense play himself, and this is thecase here as well. His role is a small one but hopefully reveals the

background: hes an informer straight out of the world of ClouzotsTheRaven.

Was the role of the terminally ill wife part of the original idea? The idea is an old one. I am going to make a short in Tokyo for anomnibus film. The theme and the miraculous recovery have been takenfrom there, and are connected to the proprietor of a sake bar I saw in aTokyo fish market. I added them to the refugee theme that had also beenin my mind for years. The fact that the subject matter is very societal,

and one that I dont feel Im very strong at, partly explains why I endedup with this kind of semifairy tale.

There are two characters absolutely at the bottom of the hierarchy.And those whose cards are most stacked against them conquer thelaws and regulations and the whole system purporting to supportpeople, while it is something completely else. The theme of death isconsistent. That, too, is already dead, there are only theseunpretentious people left capable of resistance.

The theme of the outskirts of the town is also close to me. Theinhabitants of the outskirts versus downtown. Or the one that almostalways comes up with me is a country boy in a big city. The godfatherhere, too, is Italian neorealism: how the community rises and embracesthe refugee boys cause. I use outrageous French clichsa bread shop


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and accordion music. Im walking on the edge here but so far the Frenchhave so far swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

There is one more death in the background: the one of cinema. You

are one of the few who still hold on to 35mm film. Real film is light, digital is electricity.

You have said that Le Havreis the beginning of a trilogy. When youare done, you will have 20 films under your belt.The trilogy will perhaps be completed in 10 years. Its good to insert a

hook like that. If you talk about a trilogy, you cant stop at two films.And if you have already made two trilogies, you simply must do a third,otherwise it wouldnt be a trilogy of trilogies.

Will you continue in France?Ill make the next one in Spain, and the third one in Germany.

But still not in Portugal, where you live half of the year?Although Ive lived there for 20 years now, I still dont know how the

Portuguese think. The most inscrutable nation Ive ever come across.

Kaur is Maki

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