Tea time avec Les animaux domestiques (Domestic Animals)

Interview with Jean Lecointre, director of Les animaux domestiques (Domestic Animals)

 What inspired you to make Les animaux domestiques?
As a child in the early 1970s, I was fascinated by a collection of books called La Vie Privée des Animaux (The Private Lives of Animals). The works were translated from Italian and were remarkably well-illustrated. Every double-page spread presented the animal in all of its states. For Les animaux domestiques, I was inspired by Volume 1: Les animaux de la maison et du jardin (House and Garden Animals). I first came up with the story of Les animaux domestiques for a book published in 2008 at Éditions Thierry Magnier. From the beginning, I intended to make this into an animated film, so I worked on the graphic narration like a storyboard. What was supposed to be a fantastical encyclopedic work slowly evolved into a comedy, and more precisely vaudeville.

 Do you have a particular affection for one of the animals presented?
I have an affinity for all of those animals: I can be a stupid and unjust victim of my own obedience like the Dog, indolent and proud like the Cat, I can put my foot in my mouth like the Fly, or even like the Butterfly, which only has one day to live, searching for immediate gratification. Perhaps it’s the Toad and his detached “What’s the point?” attitude that I like the most. Like him, I’d sometimes like to be able to hibernate for six months.

 What techniques did you employ to create the animation?
I create the images from photographs that I scan from old magazines and that I assemble and color digitally. I send those images to an animator who uses a technique that resembles the animation of paper cut-outs with the benefits and flexibility of very powerful software. For the animation of Les animaux domestiques, I had the opportunity to work in the beginning with animator François Leroy, who, with Stéphanie Lansaque, is the director of some incredible animated short films (Editor’s note: Café froid was in the National Competition in Clermont-Ferrand in 2016, read the interview). He defined the technical bases for the animation used to bring these characters to life. He was instrumental in the making of this film.

 How did you work on conveying the inherent logic of each of these animals and showing the reality of their biological behaviors?
I consulted my book, Les animaux de la maison et du jardin, for the popularized version of their particular traits. Then, I placed them in front of the mirror of our own standards, with what we can and cannot do in our society. Of course, I chose the behaviors that were the most opposed to our sense of decorum in order to obtain the most catastrophic reactions. With the photographic and anthropomorphic aspects of the animals, I wanted to revive that wonderfully eerie sensation I had as a child when watching the series Babar. The acting was done by real actors in disguise. Everything was fake and real at the same time. I felt disturbed, terrified and fascinated all at once.

 Do you have a particular affection for British humor, and what would be your references? Do you like The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde?
I love the English series The IT Crowd which I discovered this year. Of course, Monty Python remains the ultimate reference in British humor. But if my images can be graphically compared to Terry Gilliam’s animations, my true influence for Les animaux domestiques would be Mon oncle by Jacques Tati, and above all Luis Buñuel. I love the way he views our society in the fashion of a pitiless entomologist, where sex and absurdity hide and reveal themselves in the most unexpected ways. Films like The Phantom of Liberty where he inverts our social rules, or The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie were very stimulating to me, as was his biography. The Viscount Charles and his wife Marie-Laure sponsored Buñuel as well as many other surrealist artists. This worldly couple who organized receptions in their modern villa in Hyères served as a model for the Archibald couple. The financing and presentation of Buñuel’s film L’âge d’or caused such a scandal that the Viscount and his wife lost a large part of their “friends”. We can relativize the seriousness of that loss by imagining them as they continued to party with Buñuel, Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst and many other avant-garde artists of the time. This is how I imagined the Archibalds, who end up enjoying the company of the Animals and their peculiarities. I don’t really have an opinion on The Portrait of Dorian Gray. I know the story, but I never read the book. I saw a film adaptation quite a while ago, but I don’t recall much about it… to be honest, I don’t see how it relates to Les animaux domestiques. What exactly did you have in mind?

 What interested you in swaying between the animals’ human behaviors and the humans’ irrational behaviors?
The anthropomorphism of the animals necessarily renders them more human and the humans’ reactions are often impulsive and “bestial”. When Mrs. Archibald gets angry with the Dog after the car is stolen, I wanted her to become as aggressive as a pitbull, while we would feel sorry for the obedient Dog, who walks away grumbling, his hands in his pockets.

 What interested you in the confrontation of eccentricities in the intimacy of these high-society parties, with the guests looking on?
Through this confrontation, I wanted to create a reaction followed by an explosion, but in hindsight, I realize I was more interested in the feeling of guilt and its consequences, such as exclusion or snobbery, which provide the illusion of protection. This interest, which was not a conscious one when I wrote the story of Les animaux domestiques, has become more obvious and recurrent as I work on the film adaptation of my book À la mode (In Fashion). The action takes place in an isolated kingdom tormented by the fear of not being in fashion, where the inhabitants live in fear of a terrible monster: Ridicule.

 Any cinematic coups de cœur in the past year you’d like to tell us about?
It’s not exactly a film from this year, but the last film I remember really liking was Casa Grande by Fellipe Barbosa. Also, someone recently introduced me to the short film C’était le chien d’Eddy (It Was Eddy’s Dog) by Bertrand Mandico (Editor’s note: And Olivier Babinet, member of the National Competition Jury, 2017), a director that I didn’t know. His film really made me want to see more of his work.

 If you’ve already been to Clermont-Ferrand, could you share with us an anecdote from the festival? If not, what are your expectations for this year?
This is my first time at the festival in Clermont-Ferrand. I expect to make some discoveries of course, as well as encounters that might result in future projects.

Les animaux domestiques is being shown in National Competition F9.