In Paris, Sandra takes care of both her eight-year-old daughter, whom she is raising alone, and her aging father, who has Benson syndrome, an atypical early variant of Alzheimer’s disease. Like a ray of sunshine in the gloom, Clément, a former lover, returns by chance to the young woman’s life. An intense but fragile affair then begins, in that Clément is married, with all the uncertainties and complications that entails. Met in the City of Light, filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve and actress Léa Seydoux talk about the production of the very personal A nice morningpresented at Cannes last year.
It is a film which was born from an intimate necessity. When I came back from Sweden after the production of Bergman Island and I sat down at my work desk, I quickly realized that I would not be able to write anything other than a film dealing with this terrible disease from the point of view of this girl: this experience, I have experienced myself. There are films we make because we want to make them; there is momentum. There, it was not that: it was a need which imposed itself on me. »
Obviously, revisiting these events, which had been painful, meant exposing oneself to additional emotional shocks. However, noticing that she would not be able to deal with another subject, Mia Hansen-Løve resigned herself and plunged.
All my films are very personal. They all have an autobiographical dimension, or finally biographical: they are inspired by my life or by people I have known and loved, who have died or who are still living… Mia Hansen-Løve”
“All my films are very personal,” she continues. They all have an autobiographical dimension, or finally a biographical one: they are inspired by my life or by people I have known and loved, who have died or who are still living… In the case of Sandra, there are plenty of similarities with me , about what she’s going through, because I’ve been through it all. She also lives in a way that resembles the way I once lived. »
The filmmaker adds that she has not tried to make Léa Seydoux her carbon copy.
“When I make a film, even with such an autobiographical content, it becomes fiction, since there is always a part of transformation. That’s what stimulates me, artistically. I want to try to capture, to capture the truth of an experience, but through fiction, by calling on actors who bring their own presence, their own personality, their body, their story… And so, it becomes something else. thing, and that’s what interests me. In this case, with Sandra, there is a lot of me, but there is also a lot of Léa, and the character is the encounter between the two of us. »
Transcend role
In this case, Mia Hansen-Løve developed the project with Léa Seydoux in mind, with all that involved the risk of disappointment in the event of refusal on the part of the actress, one of the most sought after in France. Fortunately, the star of Just the end of the worldof No Time to Die (Dying can wait), of Deception and of Crimes of the Future (The crimes of the future) accepted immediately.
“I didn’t do much, readily admits Léa Seydoux. I read the script and was touched. It was quite natural. I didn’t say to myself, about Sandra: “She’s going to be like this, she’s going to be like that.” It was more about feeling. »
It was, to use the actress’ formula, “inside.”
“I thought that if the character was embodied, people would be touched. I always try to make the characters tangible, to make the audience go through the character on screen. It’s difficult in the cinema, precisely with this screen, unlike in the theatre, where there is direct interaction with the spectators in the room. The key is sincerity: if there is great sincerity in the game, then it works. »
Léa Seydoux entrusts to seek to transcend the roles which one offers to him by giving them an additional dimension.
“With Sandra, not only was it possible, but it was encouraged. Mia is very precise and does a lot of takes, but inside that, she leaves a lot of freedom. And me, what I adore in cinema is when something unexpected happens, like that, like a beauty. For me, it borders on the sacred. »
Léa Seydoux also has only good words for Pascal Greggory (Queen Margot, Those who love me will take the train), who portrays Sandra’s father with remarkable interiority and accuracy (this is the kind of role where it would have been easy to do tons in order to impress the gallery).
“With Pascal, we got along wonderfully. It was as if we had known each other forever. He’s like a child, Pascal. By that I mean that we feel his pleasure in playing, in being there. He has kept his taste for the game intact. Something that also touches me is his way of seeing life, because Pascal, everything good that happens to him, every day, is as if it were profit, reprieve, surplus. »
An unexpected corollary
Speaking of profit, A nice morning had one that Mia Hansen-Løve did not expect. This positive corollary, she summarizes it thus.
“Revisiting such an experience with my father certainly made the writing process less enjoyable at times, as opposed, again, to Bergman Islandwhich was very playful, exploratory, exotic… It was for me the discovery of an unknown territory, even if it was an introspection, while with A nice morning, I was confronted with a daily life that I know in a more thankless, more direct way. What is paradoxical is that it turned out to be deeply cathartic. There was less pleasure at the start, but more appeasement at the finish. »
The film A nice morningopens February 17. François Lévesque conducted this interview in Paris at the invitation of UniFrance.