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KINEMATRIX First of all, I really
enjoyed the Silent Voices
and, as for me, this is the best one so far of the Festival: very intense,
emotional, very good. Now, I know that you have done some research some
documentary work that concerns the prison. Nevertheless, I would like to
know why you have decided to pick these three particular stories: of a
mother whose son has been murdered, of a man who is unable of achieving
anything in his life and of a girl who falls in love with a young activist,
young rebel. So, why them?
Léa Fehner It’s true that at the beginning I worked in the
association and I heard many different stories while doing my research, many
interesting stories that I could have taken, but these ones somehow imposed
themselves at a certain point. I was really inspired by Stephane who
couldn’t make any choice regarding his future and always felt out of place,
by this girl who one day I actually met while working in the center where
she came asking about how to be able to visit her “cousin” in prison. Of
course it was obvious it wasn’t a cousin but a boyfriend. She was so willing
to travel for an hour in the outskirts where the prison was with no public
transport- she was really willing to do so. About Zorah, I was very
impressed with her story: she’s from Algeria, she has lost her son as he had
been killed during the war. She confessed she couldn’t feel anything at the
very moment when he got shot and she felt that as a mother she should have
felt something in her body and heart. All these stories mix with my own
feelings, with what I felt while hearing them- that’s how I got the
narrative for the Silent Voices.
Why are you so fascinated by the prison, by the life behind bars? When I
was studying in Poitiers I lived next to a prison, and, I must admit, there
was something fascinating and scary at the same time about this place. So,
could you add something to what U have written in your note about this
object of fascination?
Well, this is my first movie so it’s a bit like spider’s webs- I tried to
put everything that I could, everything of myself as much as it was
possible. I don’t want to talk about fascination because it means being
blinded by something. What moved me was my will to understand and grasp what
goes behind the walls, how to lower the barriers, how to create a way to
communicate. I’ve spent three years working on it, trying to get as deep as
I could. The main question in these stories is: to what extent can a human
being go in order to be able to attain the other, to get to the other
person.
Now I’ve got a question for one of the leading actors, Reda Kateb. How
would you explain Stephane’s final choice, the choice he makes at the end of
the movie when he decides to stay in prison. Did he just want to prove
something, for example, that he’s a real man, or he finally reached the
point where he was sure that it was what he wanted to do, or maybe the money
was so important for him?
What was the most important was how to present the change. We thought about
three characters, three different kinds of personality. At the beginning
Stephane is a bit like a child: he lives with his mother, can’t deal with
his girlfriend, seems very lost and very shy- I believe this is the
situation of many people over 30 who don’t understand this competition
world, don’t have the idea and the stimulation to find their own way of
life. Then, when Stephene meets Pierre, for the first time in his life he
finds a person who treats him as if he actually was somebody- and this is
one of the reasons why he decides to stay in jail. When he decides so, it’s
the very first time for him to decide anything, it’s even a physical change,
his attitude changes completely. And, finally, there’s the third one,
Joseph, who got used to living in jail and who doesn’t have to prove
anything- he’s simply a tough guy. I was really lucky to perform all these
three characters, it was very rare…
… And pretty interesting as well. The next question has to do with one of
the characters: Zorah. There is this scene, a very intense one, where Zorah
is washing her dead son’s body, and then she’s washing the baby who’s a
nephew of her son’s murderer. Is the act of washing a kind of a symbol, a
sign, a metaphor?
I’ve always been very touched by women who lose their children. What is so
strange about this event, which is against the nature, is that a mother
still has the status of a mother but, somehow, she’s handicapped, she’s not
a mother anymore since the object of her motherhood is not longer there and
she feels she’s suddenly at a loss of reason to live. This fact of washing
the body belongs to the Algerian tradition. Nevertheless she couldn’t wash
the body of her son, not a son of this age, as it’s not a woman’s task, it’s
a man’s task. Her son is too grown up, he’s too adult for her to do it. The
reason why she washes him is that she hopes to continue being a mother for
some more time. Then, while she’s washing the baby she shows a sort of
tenderness. She represents the status that has no words: you talk about
widows, orphans, but how to describe a mother who has lost her child, there
are no words to identify that status, so it’s tough for her and for the
audience, but it’s a way for her to feel vengeance and to feel tenderness
and we wonder, and she wonders as well: where does this vengeance go, where
does this tenderness go? I’ve seen it in many persons in the same situation:
they suffer and it is as if they needed to suffer even more in order to be
able to survive. Zorah suffers more while doing these two actions of washing
her son’s body and then the baby, but she’s afraid of stop suffering as it’s
so unjust to lose a child and it’s a way she finds to tell something to
herself, although the baby is a nephew of her son’s killer. The reason why
they are scared of stop suffering is because if they stop they feel they are
going to lose their children. The ides of never-ending suffering is the idea
of keeping their children with them.
Speaking about Zorah, after her son’s death
she gets to know that he was homosexual - does it somehow intensify her
grief, her pain, does she accept it? As we can’t really see her reaction,
what do you thin she thinks or feels about it?
The biggest pain for Zorah is caused by the fact that she realizes she
didn’t know her own child. To me, this case of the parents not knowing their
children any longer is the only thing that talks about the problem of
emigration in this movie. For Zorah it’s not only having lost her son, but
at the same time getting to know that she didn’t know him, that she knew
nothing about his life, that she had no idea about such important things as
love that his son felt to somebody. Nevertheless, I don’t think she judges
him, it’s so sad for her that she didn’t know all these thing about him, but
I really don’t think that she judges him anyhow.
What movies and what directors do you think have inspired you the most?
Definitely Kieslowski. Kieslowski as for the narration and the dramatic
structure of the movie, the moral issue that is always central to the path
and the development of the characters - it’s typical of his movies.
Kieslowski was always able to build up the plot by making different
characters cross their paths, and accompanying them while the movie goes.
Also Jacques Audiard, although I didn’t know his latest movie, The
Prophet, while making the
Silent Voices, for his way or portraying the characters and the
passion which is there and which they show in their stories.
So, once again thank u for such a brilliant movie, and it was a great
pleasure talking to you. Thank you.
Thank you, Natalia.
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cura di HOLOWNIA