Lunch with La journée d’appel
An interview with Basile Doganis, director of La journée d’appel
Journée d’appel, a reference to the Service National des Journées Défense et Citoyenneté, takes us inside one of these days of obligatory military service which proves to be quite funny. Is it totally imagined, or did you or someone close to you really experience some of the situations described in the film?
As is often the case in fiction films, there is in this “call-up day” a share of reality and a share of invention, which is in part determined during the writing of the script as we give free rein to our imagination, but also during the shooting of the film as the actors improvise – and with my actors, I was spoiled in that respect! Personally, having received citizenship late in my life even though I had lived in France since the age of 3, I couldn’t do my JDC (Journée Défense et Citoyenneté) at the same time as my friends, but I quickly learned exactly what went on during these days by listening to their different stories. Strangely, even though these stories were far from enthusiastic, I was always jealous for being excluded from this republican rite, which alone incontestably proves one’s belonging to the country. It ends up that it was the cinema that gave me my “Journée d’appel”, which leaves me most certainly with much better memories than most of those called up. I was given authorization by the army to observe several JDC in preparing the film in order to make sure I got it right and to serve as inspiration in the very concrete details of these days as I created the different scenarios. For example, the first aid training was a revelation that I absolutely had to include in the film for its comic potential. Most of the film still follows the script, and the most difficult part in editing the film was including the moments of improvisation in the written scenes without upsetting the rhythm and the staging of the film.
Journée d’appel focuses on a group of five characters, young men from the same neighborhood. Momo’s character is rejected by the others because of his desire to progress in life through study and work. Did you persist in your work as a director, no matter what?
I hadn’t thought of the fact that Momo’s character could be seen as a kind of metaphor of the director pursuing his path no matter what. This character in fact demonstrates empathy and generosity – in my opinion qualities just as important in this career as perseverance – Momo takes the time to help Chris by giving him a ride, and then shares part of his world and his knowledge without excluding Chris, which he could have done in response to the exclusion he suffered from the other neighborhood youth.
To put it simply, in this ensemble film, I’ve tried to paint a gallery of the most varied characters possible to represent the diversity of suburban youth, of which I am a part – the diversity of “the” diversity, which is as complex and varied as any other group or sub-group in our society. Even among the other characters from the neighborhood who are a bit more attached to the “gang” culture, there is Lamine (the young man in coat and tie) who doesn’t hesitate to express his differences, and often with courage faced with the peer pressure from his group. Thus, there is a continuity between all of these young people who share the same social conditions and often the same cultural references, yet at the same time a large heterogeneity of characters and life paths. I found it interesting to write the film so that the “hardest” of the characters and the one most influenced by the group codes was paradoxically the one who found himself acting as a bridge between the rest of the group and Momo, the intellectual, the “sell-out” of the neighborhood.
Do you think that your other three young characters also want to have a career? Do they have any hopes or dreams? What kind of future did you imagine for each of your characters?
I think that with all young people of this generation who have only known crisis after crisis, the other protagonists have their dreams – more or less achievable, more or less humble or megalomaniacal. But I think that the reinforced experience of mass unemployment for young people of foreign origin, or at least those perceived as such, through their intimate experience with discrimination, stains or darkens all their projections of the future. Even with such a small sample of protagonists, several different futures are suggested in Journée d’appel: success through study for Momo, through work and why not through love for Lamine, through work also for Chris (who needs a certificate from the JDC in order to work) and through an eventual return to his “homeland” if the situation becomes too dire in France. For the other characters played by Rabah Naït Oufella and Malamine Sissoko, even if their plans for the future are not clearly expressed, we can sense a true political consciousness, more or less structured, but real nonetheless. This is seen clearly in their confrontation with the soldiers in the JDC, as they express a true demand from their society and a determination to pull through in life. In certain improvised scenes, they both used their talents as rappers (which they are in real life), but that image of the young suburban who succeeds through rap has become such a stereotype that I preferred to leave that out in the final cut.
In Journée d’appel, the protagonists’ family background is not developed. Why this choice?
In a film, and especially in a short film, choices must be made. We can’t talk about everything, nor show everything about the characters’ lives. In my previous short film, Le Gardien de son frère (2012), the family background was much more important because the subject of the film was about the family relations of two brothers who were without their father. However, I think in Journée d’appel, the family, and especially the maternal authority, is implicitly present: we understand that it is Lamine’s mother who has made him wear a coat and tie for the JDC, Chris is afraid of being “torn to pieces” by his mother if he doesn’t come back with his certificate, Momo drives the family car and we understand that he has been shaped by the history and destiny of his family when we find him moved by the painting that depicts the colonial conquest of Algeria. Even without being present on the screen, the family and domestic culture play a major role in the behavior of the characters.
During their call-up day, your heroes adopt a disinterested position, and show only their desire to use the day for their own amusement. Do you think the protection services as well as the police and the army are interesting to the youth of today?
If you have witnessed a JDC, you can see that enthusiasm and zeal are not exactly the most present qualities in the young participants – whether it be kids from the suburbs or other youth from more privileged backgrounds! From there, we have to distinguish between what consists of real boredom, and what consists of the classic “rebel” attitude of kids of that age who have just passed through adolescence, who seek to assert themselves in braving the adult world, especially in a standardized and regulated environment like the army. Often, young people (from the suburbs or elsewhere) spontaneously ask questions about careers in the army during the JDC, especially given the devastated labor market. It is a bit more complicated when it comes to the police. Whereas the choice to join the army would be respected by their peers, with a bit of teasing all the same, the choice to join the police is much harder to assume, because the police is perceived more as a source of problems and insecurity than a reassuring institution.
In your mind, do the young people presented in your film have the impression of an abusive police presence BEFORE their call-up day?
It is unfortunately not only in my mind that young people from the suburbs have the impression of an abusive police presence. Associations have in fact been created in response to this abuse, and without getting into autobiographical details, I have personally had very negative experiences with the police, during identity checks, and one especially bad one when I was barely 14 years old. So, in the film, these young people have that experience in common before their call-up day, even if each deals with it differently by establishing more or less distance. This is what the scene (completely improvised) is about when the three young men return from the JDC and meet three other youth around a sheesha and talk about the police. Lamine distinguishes himself from the others by showing extraordinary calm faced with the abuse (he says he replies “thank you” to the police who call him a “dirty monkey”), which prompts the criticism from the others for his supposed lack of “pride”.
However, Journée d’appel is not a film against the police or their abuse. That is not at all the subject of the film. It is about the feeling of belonging – to the country, the neighborhood, the gang. The relationship with the police only interests me insofar as it has an influence on this feeling of belonging. A young person abused by the police will feel singled out by society as an enemy of the state, or at least as an eternal suspect, and will obviously have a feeling of belonging more complex and painful than an ordinary citizen who is only stopped when he does something wrong. But that is only one ingredient among others in the feeling of belonging, which is also determined by a slew of other elements which are addressed in the film. So, when we pass from the vestiges of France’s powerful military past to the Chatêau de Versailles, or the documentaries shown during the JDC that evoke more or less skillfully France’s colonial past, the effect is not the same for those who are from families originating from former French colonies and those who aren’t. That is not to say that youth who come from immigrant backgrounds don’t feel French as they face potentially hurtful institutions or experiences, quite the contrary. It’s just that their voices and their specific historical destinies aren’t fully taken into account in their nuance and integrated into the story of the country which excludes and hurts them.
It is that question, in all of its complexity, that I tried to make the viewer aware of by adopting the point of view of these young suburban men confronted by a series of institutions which affect their feelings of belonging – without ignoring these men’s own intolerance with regard to those who don’t share the same codes or values, inside or outside of their neighborhood.
Finally, Journée d’appel was produced in France. In your opinion, what does French short film production have that the others don’t?
The system of financing for short films in France is exceptional. In addition to the selective or automatic aid from the CNC, there is regional or departmental aid, purchasing or pre-purchasing by TV channels, and even aid depending on the theme of the film. Journée d’appel benefitted from almost all possible aid (CNC, Arte, Val-de-Marne, Adami, Acsé). These means offered to young directors allow them to experience the shooting of films in professional conditions and prepare them for feature-length films. The only disadvantage of this profusion of aid is that they are often awarded to the same films, which leads to a logic of all or nothing: some films get all the aid they need, whereas others get nothing and have to be made on an almost volunteer basis. In any case, these good financial conditions in France also allow for very competent technicians on all levels and production companies that are often very experienced even if they are “young”. This was the case for my production company (Kazak Productions) and my producer Jean-Christophe Reymond, who helped me a lot right from the development of the screenplay to the realization of the film.
Program to see Journée d’appel: National Competition F5.
