Dinner with Braquer Poitiers

Interview with Claude Schmitz, director of Braquer Poitiers

 We get the feeling that the film is driven by a reflection about workplace alienation. Is this theme at the origin of the film?
Braquer Poitiers originated with my encounter with Wilfrid Ameuille, who is not an actor and who is in charge of a car wash company in real life. The project was conceived after meeting him during the shooting of Rien sauf l’été. He was passing by for other reasons and ended up being in a few shots in the film. He was so interested in what we were doing that he invited us to shoot some footage at his house near Poitiers. I told him that I would agree as long as he played himself in the film and became the main protagonist. Everything started with that invitation. After that, I had two guiding storylines: Wilfrid is robbed by Thomas and Francis, who are then joined by Hélène and Lucie. From that premise, we invented the wanderings of that group from day to day. None of the scenes were written or rehearsed. The stakes for that kind of shoot are to get oneself into a state of complete readiness. The actors are not improvising, they are simply trying to be in the present moment. In the end, we find ourselves in a subtle balance between fiction and reality. You could summarize the making of this film thusly: be in the present, be attentive to people, to accidents, and to opportunities. The very process of the film proposes an alternative way of filmmaking. It is a problem that obsesses me but which, economically, obviously raises a lot of questions… With regards to the story: yes, of course, the film addresses workplace alienation. Moreover, we see that in this story everything happens a bit by accident and the main obstacle to success for this group is money. In the broad outline, we see two opposing visions of the world: one, more conservative, evokes farmlands and sharing, and the other is based on contemporary values connected to material possession. And yet, paradoxically, Wilfrid is the owner of a chain of car washes… These machines are a clear symbol of our capitalistic society. Beyond the contradictions during certain moments like during the song by Brel, we are under the impression that something is possible, that these people despite their differences will succeed in coming up with a way to live together and recreate a marginal, atypical community… disalienated, as it were.

 The dialogues, and the gap between Wilfried’s reactions and the situation he is experiencing, produce a successful comic effect. But we get the feeling that Braquer Poitier is not just about making people laugh: what feeling or what reflections did you want to evoke in the viewer?
The comic effect results from the real encounters between the different protagonists in the film. The comedy does not represent an end in itself because the film is not aiming to make people laugh at all cost… Rather, it is a study of customs and, in a way, of a human comedy in the sense that Balzac defined it, i.e. a “natural history of society”, trying to bring out social groups and the cogs of society to paint a portrait of the era. But I must repeat that there was no script for this portrait. In a way it is auto-generated… I was the organizer, the facilitator and the first viewer. Ideally I would like the viewer to have the same sensation of astonishment that I experienced as we were shooting the film… the sensation of witnessing from minute to minute the forming of a community, of real friendship – because it is real – between very different people that resemble us all the same.

 Your short film Rien sauf l’été was released in theaters in conjunction with Le Film de l’étéby Emmanuel Marre, thus benefiting from a larger audience than if it had only been released on the short film circuit. Ideally, how would you like to distribute Braquer Poitier?
Ideally, in theaters…

 What are your thoughts on the visibility of short films today?
Unfortunately, I see very few short films. The diffusion of this format is complicated, we all know. Outside of festivals and a few television broadcasts, it is difficult to find support for this kind of format. However, I have the feeling that through the Internet and certain other platforms, something is in the process of changing… and then there are releases in theaters – rare, of course – like we did with Les films de l’été. That project is the result of an association of brave producers, the Short Film Agency, and the Brive Film Festival… it goes to show that everything is possible, but it forces us to be inventive.

 Are there any particular freedoms that the short film format allows you?
It is a format that allows all possible freedoms. It is a veritable ground for experimentation that is not subject to commercial imperatives, so I have the luxury of peace in the creation of these films… afterwards, the other side of the coin is that, in my case, they were created with very little money. Scriptless films are not fundable. Luckily, there is precious financial aid available like Cinémas 93 or Ile-de-France.

Braquer Poitiers is being shown in National Competition F7.