Breakfast with Le repas dominical

An interview with Céline Devaux, director of Le repas dominical
[The Sunday Meal] 

Where did the idea for Le repas domincal come from and how did you go about writing the dialogue?

I wanted to write a film about the moment when you yourself become one of the adults in the family. And when your affection for you parents has to coexist with your own opinions. I first wrote the dialogue as a musical. Then as the film took shape, it gradually became a voice-over.

How did you develop the animation in the film? What effects were the most important for the whole?

The discrepancy between the voice-over and the images. I always think you should avoid literalness. People aren’t idiots – if the voice-over is saying something, you don’t have to show them an image on the screen that exactly repeats it.

Can “family meals” be considered a ritual? In general, do you think that cultural rituals can lead to the development of the self, or are they more of a subterfuge?

I’m not sure they’re a ritual. I think they’re more likely a well-meaning solution to an understandable fear: reaching out to one’s children, or to one’s loved ones in general. If you have very well-founded reasons to hate your family, then getting together for the Sunday meal is not a subterfuge, but something very serious and very painful. If you love them even though you no longer understand them, like Jean, then it’s simply a gesture of love. That could lead to the development of the self because it forces you to remain tolerant and generous.

Are you interested in the repetition of the everyday, in immobility, the questioning of routines and social patterns?

Social patterns is a curious term since it isn’t applicable to everyone. Given your culture, language, social status, you won’t be have the same social patterns. What is interesting is trying to get at the feelings they raise: anxiety and anger, which are universal themes.

Are you interested in parent-child relationships and do you see yourself making other films on the topic?

Family is a bottomless pit. You can’t escape it – either in life or in writing. We live for lack of a family, despite our family, thanks to our family. If you don’t love them, you have to justify yourself – but also if you love them too much. It’s fascinating.

How did you script the adult characters and what effect did you want to create through their presence? Could they have been absent?

“Adults” are those people who will always be older than me. Some eighty-year-olds refer to ninety-year-olds as “old-timers”. They are people you try to understand without judging them by today’s standards, our generation’s standards, the standards of the life you’d like to lead. It was important for me to show them, since they also exist through the image we have of them: now and in their youth.

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How did you come up with the character of the mother and her inner force? Do you think of her as more of a liberated woman or a dominatrix?

The mother is a wounded heroine and I love her with all my heart. She thinks she’s lost her strength because she’s lost her beauty, but she’s actually a splendid queen. At the same time, she’s completely lost: she loves her son and thankfully he knows that because she really goes on about anything at all.

Do you think there are “limits” to the intimacy between parents and children, or among siblings? Where should they be set, and should we respect them?

That’s an extremely sensitive issue. To be honest, I think I’m afraid of it. I think films talk about it too much, and often not very well, so as a viewer you end up in that really uncomfortable situation where the filmmaker’s own morality comes to the fore.

What did the homosexual element that was dealt with in the film add to the whole?

It was just about sexuality. You mentioned the intimacy between parents and children. Talking about sex is the barrier between them. Even in the most open families, it’s pretty rare to talk to your parents about sexual positions and your feelings about a sexual experience, or else you make a point of talking about them. Homosexuality is the essence of that barrier. Jean is firmly an adult, and moreover one whose sex life can never overlap with or imitate his parents’.

Do you think that escape is preferable to taking a stand or to conflict?

I don’t think so. I do, however, think that many family conflicts arise from the impossibility of getting beyond the desire for imitation. We’re used to being the same, since we come from a single cell, and we often project our desires and opinions onto the people closest to us. It’s difficult to accept that they don’t feel the same way, and perhaps it’s when we manage to accept that that we truly become adults.

Why did you choose to put the family around that particular table, instead of a coffee table or a U-shaped table, for example?

Because hangovers make you hungry! And it’s also no joke drawing a U-shaped table. You try it!

How did your family react to the film?!

Very well. I was well aware as I was writing that I wasn’t engaging in literal autobiography, and they knew that as well, so they got a kick out of it.

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

Yes, absolutely! You’re forced to get straight to the point, to know what you really want to talk about, what you think is right. At the same time, you obviously can’t achieve the same breadth in the characters or the emotions as you can with a feature film.

Le repas dominical 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?

The film was made with the production company Sacrebleu. It received support from the CNC, Arte and Mission Paris Cinéma. Yes, I think it’s very much anchored in a French reality – references in the dialogue, the train in the suburbs, and so on. But I also wanted to use ideas that could have been the basis of the narration – social belonging, homosexuality – and not let them take over the story. I wanted those stories of belonging to blend into something larger, and try to get at something a bit more universal.
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Le repas dominical is being shown in National Competition F12.