Tea time with Jason Krist

Interview with Matthieu Vigneau, director of Jason Krist

How did you come up with the idea for Jason Krist ?

Initially, I only had Jason, a young homeless man who lives in his car, like many people do. Then a missing young woman. It was only later that the Christ-figure came up. He had to pay for the others, and besides I got a kick out of the fact that the eventual reincarnation of the son of God was forging documents in order to get housing.

Why did you decide to alternate moments of realism with mystical moments?

I thought that would be interesting, I wanted to try it. And then for the pleasure of making it happen, the trompe-l’oeil effect. For the scene where Jason walks on water, and the one with the stigmata, I tried to find answers, possibilities, making things up as I went along.

Why did you choose to give so little information about your main character’s past?

It’s a day in the life of a young homeless man. I didn’t want any pointless compassion. The viewer can almost judge Jason like you would a person that you passed on the street.

Did you write Jason Krist the way it is, or did you consider it a part of a larger whole, with a “before” and an “after”?

Actually, there were more scenes in the script. I wasn’t able to film the whole of it properly. My film is self-financed so the budget is equivalent to the price of a good used scooter. The film came to life in the editing room.

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Why did you decide to situate your film in a setting close to Nature rather than in a large city?

I used the setting that I live in. All the locations in the film are from within a radius of ten kilometers around my home. It’s as much an aesthetic choice as a practical one, though. But also, you don’t hear much about rural suffering since the majority of homeless people get by in cities.

In Jason Krist, you show how a person can easily find himself “outside” the system and enter a vicious circle that never allows him to “get back into” the system. How did you work on that question? Did you conduct research on real cases?

I learn a lot from simply watching and listening to the people around me every day. I’ve had to fiddle with a friend’s pay stub to boost his salary so that he could find housing. That’s the world we live in. Working people have to lie and cheat to find housing.

We talk a lot about the fear of the unknown. Do you think there’s also something like the fear of isolation? Is that as frightening as the unknown?

I don’t know, but fear of the unknown only lasts until you discover the unknown. Discovering isolation doesn’t make it go away.

Do you think that, generally speaking, human groups need to have an adversary against which to construct themselves?

No, some people are lucky enough to live their lives peacefully..

In Jason Krist, you bring up our relationship to strangers. It’s true that foreignness just like any form of difference, can come under attack and become the victim of aggression and even rejection. Why were you interested in this relation? And do you think that escape is a better solution than taking a stand?

I think the simple fact of dealing with one topic or another constitutes taking a stand.

Do you think that some people are chosen by human “groups” to “expiate”, as God’s lambs who take away the sins of the World and give us Peace?

Unfortunately, I think that still exists today, everywhere in the world.

In Jason Krist, you look at the need for answers and you expose the risk that that need entails, which is of course accusing innocent people. Why did you want to examine that need?

It’s a recurring theme in films, which you can find in comedies like The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe just as much as in a thriller like Gone Girl. Innocents are accused. It’s a subject I like.

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

Short films are in fact very effective in dealing with society’s issues. You can see that in the selections here at Clermont-Ferrand. Films – regardless of genre – are always connected to our societal reality.

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Jason Krist is being shown in National Competition F3.