Tea time with Tarim le Brave contre les Mille et Un Effets

An interview with Guillaume Rieu, director of  Tarim le Brave contre les Mille et Un Effets [Tarim the Brave Versus the Thousand and One Effects]

 Tarim le Brave contre les Mille et Un Effets is a comedy made up of satirical sketches that deal with the filmmaking process. Why did you choose to use the Thousand and One Nights genre of oriental adventure films?

Basically because I wanted to make an adventure film that talks about special effects before the advent of computer generated images, and that would allow me to use as wide a range of techniques as possible. The films that Ray Harryhausen worked on, particularly the Sinbad series, are a perfect example of that, and the idea of making a homage to the master of special effects really appealed to me. Other than that, I love the stories of the Thousand and One Nights, as well as the “exotic” ambiance of the old Hollywood adaptations of them.

 How far did you go in deconstructing your own professional activities in order to come up with Tarim le Brave?

I’m not really sure. I wrote about what I know. I used what I know how to do and what I wanted to try out, but I don’t think I deconstructed anything beyond that…

 Where did you learn to make films? Did you go to a special effects school?

No, I didn’t go to a special effects school. I studied editing (high school, then a BA and a masters at the SATIS in Aubagne), though I kept leaning towards animation and special effects on my own, so that I could make monster movies. I was an intern for a quite awhile at Metronomic (I was interested in the DIY, hands-on aspect of their films), then I stayed on with them for a few projects until they invited me to make my own first short film (L’attaque du monstre géant suceur de cerveaux de l’espace [The Attack of the Giant Brain-sucking Monster from Outerspace]). Tarim le Brave is my second film.

 The name of one of Tarim’s sailors is Ahmed, pronounced Aash-Med. Was that pronunciation appropriate for the Sinbad the Sailor films? What does it evoke for you?

Actually, yes, it was appropriate, but perhaps a little less forced, more like “Ar-Med”. The name is one of several clichés of the oriental films of the period, along with pointed doorways, the black extra wearing a fez and red trousers and the clever monkey. It would have been great to have a clever monkey…

 Your Thousand and One Nights-type princess has pure white skin. Is she Yazidi? Or were you trying to denounce the type of films that used white actors to portray Eastern characters?

Partially, yes. I was even thinking of maybe making the main character white, as was often the case back then. (And when I say “often”, I really mean every single time, since the clowns and the bad guys had the right to be a little more characteristic, but the main characters were white (perhaps slightly tan) sometimes even blond…) Aside from that, I also, and perhaps most importantly, wanted to work with Delphine Théodore, and for the reasons I’ve given above, I thought it would work well.

 Did you listen to cds or cassettes (for the older people) of children’s stories? If not, where did you get the idea for the voice that narrates the story of Tarim?

Actually, I did have cassettes, but not for the Thousand and One Nights. I didn’t really get the idea from that. I don’t want to give too much away, but the voice-over was necessary because it ends up having an effect on the story’s development, and it allowed me to be a little bit more kitsch at the beginning and include a few more stupid gags.

 Had you ever skipped over parts of the film in order to get to the next part of the story more quickly? Have you ever worked on techniques for holding the viewers’ attention, and what do you think of films that string together gripping scenes?

No, making characters skip over big chunks of the film is something I’d never done before… Skipping over parts of the movie in the editing room, for reasons of pacing, or parts of the story in the script are frequent, even indispensable, occurrences, but in our case what’s happening is pretty unique, it’s closer to the missing reel in Planet Terror, for example.

As for holding the viewers’ attention, to the best of my ability, I try to make my films a series of sequences that unfold logically but that also have their own specific interest. (And ideally, they would be made up of a series of shots that also have their own specific interest.) I try not to have scenes that are only there to move the story along. So, to answer your question, I like films that string together gripping scenes. For me, Abyss is a great example of that.

 Tarim le Brave was produced in France. In your opinion, what does the French film industry offer that others don’t, as far as short films are concerned?

For me, the primary contribution of the French film industry, at least as far as short films go, is allowing a large number of people to obtain financing. It’s obviously easy for me to say that and I do consider myself somewhat privileged, since I was able to make two films thanks to the National Film Center (and they were genre films to boot), but the number of French short films produced each year makes us one of the top producing countries, if not the top.

 Do you find films somewhat lacking in originality? Since you studied filmmaking, do you find yourself looking only at the “tricks” in films?

Yes, I find many films repetitive, and no, I still manage to watch movies without particularly noticing their tricks, and thankfully so! But I find a lack of originality more in scripts than in “tricks”, so I think we still have a lot to discover about films before we become bored by the technical aspects.

 In Tarim le Brave, you mention shooting on film, even though film is hardly used anymore. Why this particular choice?

For two very important reasons. First, to be consistent with the era of the type of films I’m talking about (from the 1950s to the 1980s), and also for aesthetic reasons. Film is fascinating, and real. You can move it, superimpose it, shine a light through it like a stained-glass window… I mean it’s magical…

 The film repeatedly winks at the films of a certain period. The Thousand and One Nights films are rare today in France. Are you interested in Bollywood films?

Yes, I like them, even if they’re not my primary reference point, and even if I know more Hollywood adaptations of the Thousand and One Nights than Bollywood adaptations… But I’m not giving up hope, I think genre films in general could come back in France, and not just the Thousand and One Nights.

 
 Finally, could Tarim the Brave have saved a prince?

Actually, in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Sinbad saves a prince who’s been turned into a monkey, so if Sinbad can do it, Tarim can too. (Well, ok, he saves him so that he can do his sister, who of course is also a princess, which doesn’t hurt…)

To see Tarim le Brave contre les Mille et Un Effets, head to the screenings of National Competition F6 and to School Screenings ECO3.