Lunch with Réveiller les morts

Interview with Morgan Simon, director of Réveiller les morts
[Wake the Dead].

What inspired you to make Réveiller les morts ?

My first desire was to get Kévin Azaïs and Julien Krug to act together. I also wanted to keep a record by filming my mother and the place where I lived for 15 years. Film allows us to make all of that timeless, like a mythological tale, as trivial as it is intimate.

Is that how you imagined the film, or did you envisage a “before” and an “after”? And a “why”?

My characters always have a life before the film, the story and the dialogues reflect this. The viewer can figure this out. The ending remains open but certain answers are provided: will they go their separate ways? Here, clearly not. Regarding the “why”, it is needed in order to understand what motivates the characters to do what they are doing. One needs to mourn, the other wants to help him achieve this but it ends up reviving his uneasiness.

Are you interested in the parent-child theme and do you think you’ll make other films addressing this question?

Yes, this theme is present in the film. I don’t have the feeling of having experienced many things in my life. My parents are the people with whom I have spent most of my time. That necessarily rubs off.

Why were you interested in showing the supernatural element in Réveiller les morts?

Because cinema makes it possible. We don’t have to say that it’s a dream, everything the characters are experiencing, they are truly living it.

And why did you choose the subject of mourning one’s mother?

I wanted to make my mother immortal.

In your opinion, is the unsaid a source of suffering?

It is in any case a ball and chain that is very difficult to remove.

Do you have any brothers or sisters? Why were you interested in this relationship between the two brothers?

I don’t have much family and I am an only child, so dealing with these relations in a film was a bit like shooting science fiction!

In your opinion, do we ever stop being a child?

For the moment, I have not managed to stop being one.

Do you think that the short film is a good tool for calling the family unit into question, as well as the “mega” unit that is society?

Yes, because we can do so with a single gesture.

Réveiller les morts 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?

I think we need to free ourselves from that.
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Réveiller les morts can be seen in the National Competition F6 programme.