Dinner with Le déserteur

Interview with Jeanik Barot, director of Le déserteur [The Deserter] 

Why were you interested in adolescence?

I think it’s a fascinating period. We can often be influenced by what we’re presented with, yet we also construct our own first great certainties. I like that paradox. Moroever, it’s a watershed moment; I think it determines not a few things that come after. My initial idea was about flight, and from that perspective, I found the figure of a teenager to be perfect. At the same time, I wanted my character to be someone who was determined in his actions, I didn’t want him to be totally lost. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but that’s not a problem for him.

In your film, you tackle the subject of youth and drugs. Why do you want to bring attention to that apect?

In the film there’s not really a relation between drugs and youth. Hash is clearly a ridiculous element in the personality of the other character, Frank. Benjamin is only fourteen and he doesn’t take it all too seriously, it’s just what leads them to start talking to each other. And anyway, they get over that subject in a hurry and move on to talking about their advetures.

How did you work on the stages in their journey to get to know each other: first encounter, acceptance, mistrust?

The starting point was the fact that in his normal, everyday life, Benjamin would never have talked to that guy, and in fact, he doesn’t answer him at first. What intrigues him is that, despite his insults, the character Frank remains coolheaded, like nothing was going on. In the end, the social codes Benjamin used during recess at school don’t work with him, and that intrigues him, even leading him to a form of admiration. After that, the character Frank takes on a bigger role, especially in speaking. I really wanted the two characters to create their own world with their own language, their own theories; I wanted them to reinvent their surroundings.
Though the main character is pretty young, he seems set on his “desertion”.

How did you come up with the character? Did you talk to young men who had undertaken similar journeys in real life?

I have to admit that I did not in the least read up on the subject. As I said earlier, the idea was not really to ask where he’s going or why, but to follow him in his determination without doubting the character. I wanted the audience to feel his impulse to run away, to feel curiosity and a strong desire to discover things. He’s a pretty wise teenager, he’s organized, he comes from a completely ordinary family. He’s not running away from problems, just boredom. As for myself, I’ve never really experimented with running away, but just like everyone, I’m pretty familiar with the feeling of boredom.

Although the secondary character is physically present, he also seems to have “deserted” in his own way. How did you imagine that character?

For Frank’s character, what I wanted to do was create a sort of ordinary hero. Someone who would go unnoticed in any situation, yet he talks about his life in a way that’s truly out of the ordinary. Wherever he goes, I wanted him to fit in completely with the setting but not with the human beings who make it up. So he interacts very sparingly with the others, or only in conflict. With Benjamin, he uses a rhetoric all his own, he theorizes a lot and expresses himself almot entirely through monologues. He sparks his acolyte’s curiosity, and thereby questions to try to answer them; he’s totally in control of the conversation. Let me put it this way: I imagined him to be irritating, charismatic, absurd and touching – which is a lot of stuff. I have to say that Aurélien, who plays him, managed to project the character’s loneliness and detachment very easily.

In Le déserteur, you don’t show what happens before or why. Why did the film have to end with a new arrival? Wouldn’t a new departure have been enough?

What happened before didn’t really interest me. I wanted to show Benjamin outside his family context; I wanted the film to start in mid-flow. I also simply wanted the viewer to discover him at the same time as Frank. I wanted Benjamin the runaway, not the son, which made the ending stronger, in my opinion. In this regard, I’ve always seen the film as a loop. I wanted an ending that was a bit pessimistic about the impossibility of holding onto this kind of experience of freedom all the way to the end, and to show a kind of “burn out” in Benjamin’s determination because of his cruelty when dealing with others: he only takes what he’s interested in. Despite his likeability, his relationship with Frank is relatively consumeristic. I found this slight reversal of circumstances for the characters to be vital.

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The sentencing of minors always sits somewhere between education and repression. At what point does education become pointless for dealing with children’s real lives? At what point does repression become a good solution? Can repression lock a young person into a spiral of delinquency? What about education?

In Benjamin’s case, he lives a very rigid life. As he himself says, his routine is repetitive, and at fourteen his life is already so regimented that he leaves, it just makes sense to. I thought it was interesting to show running away as a positive experience. We’re not worried about his life; he’s in no danger –which was vital for the story that I wanted to tell. So repression has nothing to do with it, it’s not something that interested me particularly for this project. Frank was not meant to be an “educator” reproducing the formal dynamics that already existed in his family. I wanted them to be more or less equals. I had no moralistic intention. Experience is essential for growing up, so he lives his adventures even if that entails making mistakes.

Do you think that Love can leave room for freedom and lived experiences without the Other? Your character, who is in the midst of self-emancipation, seems to keep in touch with his family who are apparently not out looking for him. Do you think emancipation can occur when families are excessively permissive? Or does it require that we sever our connections to our family?

I don’t think Benjamin has a peculiar relationship with his family. I was trying precisely to dispense with fear, with the seriousness of his disappearance and thereby normalize his flight. My intention was to get rid of that “meanwhile” which is often a crutch and which bores me intensely. Using fiction and comedy, among other things, easily allows that type of shift. I think that’s one of the strengths of films: they allow us to see other realities than just our own.

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

Short films are a very rich tool. I often like their directness, which is surely linked to questions of scarcer financing than for feature films, and of formats that allow for greater liberties. All of which is a way of saying that short films seem less likely to get stuck in over-emphasized discourses. Experimentation and trial and error are acceptable; there’s still an experimental side. In this sense, I think it’s very interesting to ask important questions on that topic.

Le Déserteur 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 shot the film in the department where I grew up, the Tarn-et-Garonne, which is an important fact for me. For that reason, the film is strongly linked to those places through its sets, its discussions, the accent you hear. I tend to think that we only talk about the things we know, and that was the only place that gave me the comfort of certainties of that order. In fact, I want to do other projects in the region. I don’t see myself leaving any time soon; I haven’t exhausted the possibilities – quite the contrary. I’ve had the sense that for some years now French films have been trying more and more to highlight a place, a city, a village as living scenery. For example, I recently saw Alain Guiraudie’s The King of Escape, most of which takes place in the town of Gaillac, and he has a completely unique and fascinating way of filming it. It’s not about declaring his love for his region, but about trying to get something new from it.

Le Déserteur is a film I made while studying at film school in Toulouse, so the equipment was lent to me by the school and the technicians are friends of mine who gave me a hand. The budget, moreover, came out of my own pocket, so the film cost between 500 and 700 euros total. I only wanted to point out the fact that you can make films with very little money, which I think is essential nowadays.

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Le déserteur is being shown in National Competition F5.