Tea time with Un ciel bleu presque parfait (A Nearly Perfect Blue Sky)
Interview with Quarxx, director of Un ciel bleu presque parfait (A Nearly Perfect Blue Sky)
How did you come up with the idea for your film?
For some time now, I’d been wanting to tell a story about dysfunctional siblings. A dark, hopeless story that would lead its protagonists to the edge of madness in a silent, non-Manichean combat. After putting together the basic plot, I engage in a fair amount of automatic writing: I like the story to work itself out, guiding me towards places that I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of to begin with. For me, a story should be a narrative of the unconscious, not a formatted written product following predetermined narrative paths.
Did you do any research into the question of “helpers” for disabled people?
Absolutely not. I don’t give a toss about factual reality, even though I wanted my characters to move in a realistic, credible world. What I was primarily interested in doing was mixing surrealism and realism. What grabs me is how I represent reality, not how it really is.
Why did you want the character for your film to be a laborer who lives in a house in the country? Had you planned to transpose him to other situations in the earlier stages of filming, like an office or village?
I wanted the character to move in a sad, dark world and reflect on his lonely, difficult daily life. I wanted to make a sort of rural, working tragedy. This was a totally obvious choice for me from the beginning.
What interested you about “invisible” presences and the paranormal?
At no point does my film deal with invisible presences or the paranormal. I was marginally interested in that subject at best. The beings that Simon has to deal with are merely a reflection of his neurosis and his remorse over the acts he perpetrated on his sister. They’re an escape from the horror of his reality but they’re only real in his own subconscious. There’s nothing paranormal for me in any of that.
What interested you about showing the scenes of violence, the blood and gashes?
I like the fringes. I like the somber, dark side of things, which I find much more interesting and cinematic.
Films should spark an emotion. I never wanted to be voyeuristic, or to simply to go for shock value, but I wanted to talk about confinement in both its physical and psychological aspects; I wanted to talk about helplessness, remorse and distress. The violence surrounding both characters is muted, silent and pervasive, sometimes shattering the messy chaos that is the reflection of Simon, the main character’s psyche, as well as of the bleakness of his sister Estelle’s life. I wanted to film a story of flesh and blood, like a mirror of Simon’s remorse.
Which films have really grabbed you this year?
A Spanish animated film that I’m not sure has come out in France, Psychonauts [The Forgotten Children], by Alberto Vázquez and Pedro Rivera. [This film will be screened at the cinema Le Rio on Thursday 9 February at 8pm with the director Alberto Vázquez in attendance! – Editor’s note.] I also like Gaspar Noé’s Love, Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s The Revenant, and one film that isn’t from this year, but that I saw recently and love, The Captive, by Atom Egoyan.
If you’ve been to the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival before, can you tell us a story about one of your experiences? If you haven’t, what are your expectations for this year?
I’ve never been to Clermont-Ferrand, but I definitely expect to see films that will surprise and challenge me, that will entertain me and broaden my perspectives. And I also obviously expect to make interesting acquaintances.
Un ciel bleu presque parfait is being shown in National Competition F3.
