Lunch with Blanquette

Interview with Charlie Belin, director of Blanquette.

Why did you choose a blanquette over a leg or a roast?

Leg, roast, stew… any traditional French dish would’ve done the job. The film was created from the editing of 8 recorded family meals at my grandparents’ house. In reality, the conversations overlap a patchwork of different dishes and desserts but I chose the blanquette because it’s a family classic, and it was while eating a blanquette with them that the idea came to me. It also works well with the “blan” sound from blanquette echoing the omnipresent “blanc” (white) in the film.

Why don’t we ever see the kitchen in Blanquette ?

I wanted to keep the space tight around the table, like a stage, a theater of people sitting in a circle, side by side. The idea of the film could be told in a single drawing. A ring of three generations seated at the table for a meal. The kitchen space involves another set of challenges, and it’s a different stage (I was limited to a 4-minute format for my end of studies film project). The common thread is the rhythm of the meal, from the starter to the dessert. The viewer is a guest at the table.

Why did you choose this style of “pencilled” animation?

That’s how I draw. I love sketches. I need a drawing that has been a bit thrown together to feel the characters I animate come to life. It’s a bit like a quick sketch – what interests me is the expression, the gesture, the spontaneity.

Did you intend to make the color white so visible, or was it simply a pictorial consequence?

The white in the film was very important for me because it leaves space for the sound. I worked with recordings from a real kitchen/dining room, full of the sound of silverware, cooking, chewing, loud voices. This hubbub gives the film texture, a color and a temperature of sound. It is an enveloping presence that takes up lots of space. In my view, we had to give the images breathing space, and not say and illustrate everything. The sound also allows the viewer to project many impressions onto the blank spaces.

Why did you choose to erase the drawing as the film progressed, as if every second disappeared to make place for the next and was gone without a trace?

That’s how I wanted to stage this dinner. It was a visual way to represent this ephemeral moment. Whether it be small daily gestures, harmless conversations, plates being emptied… and the passing generations.

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Are you in the habit of drawing quick sketches in everyday places?

Yes, it’s something I really like to do. I drew my family a lot during all of those meals. I’m also fascinated by sound capture, which is also another form of sketch.

Are you interested in the theme of the passing time, or the theme of the “lack of time” in daily life?

I’m interested in the theme of everyday life. But indeed, I believe this film was also a way to crystallize a given moment, to fix in time something that was going to disappear. It’s not like a photograph or an audio recording. It is already something that exists over a time and that bears witness to a type of language, a mood, a tone, and a rhythm. Afterwards, I do something different with it and it becomes fiction, but at the root of it, it is an instant of life caught in another temporality.

Why did you choose to put your diners around that table, instead of a coffee table or a round table for example?

A round table for 8 guests is not very common. That’s why I chose an oval table, more convivial than a rectangular table and a place where I could choreograph my ring of characters.

Do you think the telephone has a place at the dinner table?

I can’t make a judgment on that. It’s simply an observation I can make in my family. The 18 to 20-year-olds place their phones on the table next to their silverware.

Can the “family dinner” portrayed in Blanquette be considered as a cultural rite?

Yes, it’s from that angle that I wanted to observe it. Many people after having seen the film told me that they recognized their own family in the film..

In Blanquette, you examine intergenerational relationships. Did you want to create a feeling of togetherness, or expose the lack of that feeling?

A bit of both. I conceived the film as if it consisted of three choirs: the four young people, the two aunts, and the two grandparents. The young people are always shown together, as are the aunts. At first, the conversations circulate between the intimate generational bubbles, but then they intersect and the bubbles burst and circulate with a dish that is being passed around, a question that is being asked, a telephone that changes hands. The grandparents are the only ones to sometimes find themselves alone in the frame, isolated by their deafness or by a brief moment of absence.

The exchanges between the different generations can create a sort of sociocultural disconnect but the film expresses above all a moment of sharing. The simple fact of eating together and being gathered around a table fosters this conversational space, sometimes just to ask for the salt, but also by a curiosity or amusement of the other. There are lots of shots together, mixed laughter, the meal is perhaps one of the most ideal moments for different generations to come together.

Do you think that today, the social structure of the family is going through a phase of paternalism?

In the film, I made the grandfather the main character, a bit like an orchestra conductor on his throne at the head of the table. The narrative structure is built around him. However, there is a degree of self-mockery with the protagonist, and having him intervene on a regular basis, I’ve made him the comical character in the film. I think that the paternalistic image he may project is a bit second degree, even though it does derive from a patriarchal culture and society. Our customs are changing, he represents authority but everyone laughs at his gaffes and he falls asleep on his plate at the end of the meal. For me, he is not the classic authority figure of the family father. On the contrary, there is a certain lightness in his words that conveys a sense of freedom. If we observe the grandmother, she also occupies an important place in the center of the frame, but she’s a bit quieter.

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

I don’t know if it is a good tool in particular to address this subject, it’s so vast! For me, I had the constraint of making a short film. In Blanquette, I don’t want to cast a judgment or an intellectual reflection on the family unit. It is more of a sensory proposition, a subjective point of view on a moment of sharing, based on a collection of anecdotes, and I think that the short format lends itself quite well to this kind of narration.

Blanquette was either produced, co-produced or self-financed with French funds. Did you write the film with this “French” aspect in mind: in building the film’s context or in questioning certain notions?

Blanquette is my end of studies film project at La Poudrière animated film school in Valence. When I started working on Blanquette, I watched quite a few dinner scenes from films, especially from the classics and from French films. I also had in mind contemporary dance choreography with ring dances and movement games (a scene from the show Racheter la mort des gestes by Jean Claude Gallotta was a source of great inspiration) as well as The Da Vinci Time Code by Gil Alkabetz, a clever assembly from the picture of the Last Supper which he transformed into a choreographed film through a game of fitting and reframing in the image.

As far as the context is concerned, this meal is made in the form of a documentary, the dialogue is real, nothing was scripted. So, it is the staging of a French family from the Grenoble suburbs. I tried to cut anything that could be too characteristic of this particular family and left only the most common and universal elements. I was conscious of the fact that I was staging a ritual strongly linked to a milieu, an era, and a country. But, a few days ago, I met a Lebanese woman who told me that she recognized members of her family in these characters and this moment of sharing a meal was very familiar to her!

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Blanquette is being shown in National Competition F1.