Tea time with Mon bras armé

An interview with Mathilde Nègre, director of Mon bras armé [My Armed Arm]

 Why did you decide to animate My Armed Arm instead of using real actors?

I came up with the scenario of My Armed Arm at the same time that I came up with the drawings. The film was written by selecting and staging animated shots at first, then the soundtrack and dialogues were created several months later. What was good with the animated characters was that I didn’t have to explain or plan the sequences. I could work alone and take as much time as I wanted, without knowing exactly what I wanted to do. And I was able to film naked characters without having to ask myself if the actors would suffer as a result.

 My Armed Arm deals with the question of choice and responsibility. In fact, we often make choices by instinct, without thinking about it, especially in the heat of the moment. Why did you decide to address the question of choice?

There is no freedom of choice without conscience.

But there is a tension between our individual conscience and our capacity towards action, our capacity to change our society.

Many people today are depressed because they feel terribly helpless. In addition to the social problems, there is the ecological tragedy, which is terribly depressing.

Individual and collective rebellion is necessary. We are responsible if we accept injustice. Artists should participate in the culture of rebellion in every domain.

 My Armed Arm evokes the National Police. Have you worked in the police or around police officers, for example, in a union or in a study gathering testimony from police officers during the making of the film?

My Armed Arm is a 4-minute animated film and is almost like a music video. I was inspired by my experiences with the police and from what I have read. This film is not the work of a journalist or a sociologist, and I did not work for the police.

Consider this: the police are the armed arm of the state. I wanted to ask this question: until what point can police officers accept to be used as instruments of state violence? Until what point are police officers human beings like the rest?

 If a prison guard enforces a decision made by the court, and a soldier acts as a result of the undertaking of a military operation, the police act before any decision is made by an identifiable third party. In your opinion, who is responsible for the actions of the police?

There is a hierarchy above the police. There are laws and rules that create a framework and define in what cases they have the right to stop a person, arrest him or kill him. It is the state that commands and legitimizes within a certain framework police violence.

When police officers go beyond the legitimate framework established for the use of violence, if they kill a handcuffed man for example, their violence is illegal.

The state, through the Inspectorate-General of the National Police (IGPN) and through the court, is still responsible if they cover up affairs, if they don’t seek for justice for the victims of police failures, if they don’t acknowledge and condemn the crimes of some of their officers and then remove their authority.

However, it is important to understand that violence is intrinsic for the police apparatus. For example, the deplorable conditions of detainment, the freezing police cells in winter, foul and disgusting. You have to beg for a glass of water or to go to the toilets. No hygiene, no privacy. Now, if you are placed under arrest, they demand your fingerprints and your DNA, and if you refuse, the prosecutor undertakes additional action against you. This violence and humiliation that are carried out under detention, they are premeditated. The fact of not turning on the heat in the cells for example… Even the architecture of the police station is violent.

I think some police officers are affected by the conditions of detention. The others, they feel comforted with the idea that these people must be punished, that a detained man deserves to be humiliated.

 What do you think about public demonstrations where the police pretend to be vandals in order to justify a crackdown on the demonstration?

Social movements don’t need “agents provocateurs” from the police to create violence within demonstrations. It is a political strategy of certain activists. And, the police don’t need a justification to break up demonstrations.

 How did you work with the voice over and the soundtrack of the film?

The soundtrack was made with atmospheric noises and electronic music. The voice was robotized.

 My Armed Arm was produced in France. In your opinion, what does French short film production have that the others don’t?

This film was self-produced, so it is a French self-production. We are lucky in France to have access to cameras and computers even with limited means to be able to work. We should take advantage of this, even if it is difficult to make films outside of a professional framework, because we are isolated, we don’t make money, and we have to spend money to make the films. It can be tiring.

Programme for viewing My Armed Arm: National Competition F5.