Breakfast with Jukai

Interview with Gabrielle Lissot, director of Jukai

How did you learn about the story of Jukai and why were you interested in developing a film around that forest?

I found out about the forest by chance through a documentary I watched on the internet. I was instantly taken by this almost mythological place where people’s unhappy fates merge with a very vital form of nature.

I was initially interested in that contrast between life and death, which is why I made my character a pregnant woman who’s almost due to give birth and who’s desperately looking for a dead person.

Why did you decide to make the surroundings in the film all black, except for the colored threads that we follow across the trees, the ground, the leaves…?

It was largely to highlight those colored threads which have a central place in my story: in addition to being visually impressive, they play a very strong symbolic role. They represent the line between life and death since they link the forest’s entrance to the chosen place of suicide for the people who unrolled them. But they are also a symbol of filiation, the tie that binds a child to its father.

I was also interested in the idea of having a visual progression corresponding to the film’s tonality: at the beginning, we’re in a very dark setting where both color and hope are nearly absent, and we end up in an explosion of color at the baby’s birth.

In Jukai, you discuss deception and lack of understanding in romantic relationships. Why did you want to show this type of failure?

I’m not all that sure that the failure of a romantic relationship is the central theme of my film. At no point is the reason that pushed the man to abandon his pregnant wife made clear. Everyone is free to imagine what they want. It’s true though that the heroine is violently angry with the man, but in the end her love for him helps her to accept his decision in all its horribleness, and to forgive him.

Does the idea that our Lifeline is so fragile interest you?

Yes, it’s a completely universal topic. Everyone has been or will be affected by the loss of a loved one. No one is indifferent to the idea. But it’s also a difficult subject to tackle because even though it’s universal, it’s also extremely personal – everyone experiences grief in his or her own way.

Are you familiar with the Greek Fates and Ariadne’s Thread? Aside from the specific story of the forest in Jukai, were you inspired by other threads?

Obviously Ariadne’s Thread is the first thing I thought of when I heard about this forest. After that, by sources were mainly artistic, especially for the structure/cradle in the final sequence. I got a lot of inspiration from art brut and Earth art, in particular from the work of Judith Scott who covers objects with woolen threads, turning them into a sort of giant cocoon. And also the work of Édith Meusnier, who builds giant geometric structures out of colored ribbons in the midst of natural surroundings.

Are you interested by the topic of parent-child relations, and do you envision yourself making other films on the subject?

Yes, I’m very interested by the topic, and more specifically by the idea of transmission from parent to child, whether consciously or unconsciously. I’m actually working on a new script right now that is based on the parallel between motherhood and astronomy (no less!), but this time from the child’s perspective.

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Why were you interested in the question of addiction, which is glimpsed in the film?

I suppose you’re talking about the scene where we see sleeping pills and a bottle of alcohol beside a body. That was more of a staging device to suggest the idea of suicide rather than a topic in its own right.

Do you think escape is an easier solution than conflict or than taking a stand?

It all depends on the situation. As a matter of fact, I think the people who decide to go to the forest of suicides in order to put an end to their days are way beyond any normal idea of escape or conflict. They probably got there because it was the last option they had, whatever their reasons might have been. And far be it from me to say whether they made their choice out of cowardice or courage.

Do you think that Love can leave room for freedom and lived experiences without the Other?

Of course. Even though she is terribly hurt by the loss of the man she loves, my heroine will overcome her pain and continue living. That hope and that urge to live are symbolized by the birth of the child.

Do you think short films are effective in questioning the meaning of family and of “macro” social units?

Yes, I think short films are to cinema what fables are to literature. Through them, the incidental becomes a means of taking on universal themes since you have to go straight to the point.

Jukai was either produced, co-produced or self-financed with French funds. Did you write the film with this “French” aspect in mind: making movie references, building a specific context (in a particular region, for example) or inserting characteristically French notions?

I wrote an earlier version of the film before I had any form of external support. But, yes, as the project began to take shape, my producer, Arte France and I began discussing whether the main character should be a young Japanese woman (as I had initially envisioned) or a young Frenchwoman. We agreed that it would be more interesting and more correct to make her French, to avoid unwanted orientalizing and to stay as close as possible to her emotions.

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Jukai is being shown in National Competition F4 as well as at the school screenings for young audiences.

Students at the school screenings will have the opportunity to meet Gabrielle Lissot at Clermond-Ferrand’s École Supérieure de Commerce on Monday, February 8 at 1pm.

The director will take questions from the audience after the F4 screening at Le Rio cinema on Thursday, February 11 at 2pm.