Sabine, Grégoire and Nawelle were victims of snatching, burglary with kidnapping and robbery, respectively. Remaining traumatized, they make a final attempt aimed at healing and continuing to live: restorative justice, or restorative justice. In due time, this trio will encounter another: Nassim, Thomas and Issa, imprisoned for similar crimes, but not committed against the first. Also wanting to move on, they participate in the process under the aegis of supervisors Fanny and Michel. At the same time, there is also Chloé, raped during childhood by her half-brother, who has taken steps with Judith… With I will always see your facesJeanne Herry offers a moving and fine film on a delicate subject.
Moving and fine, yes, and above all very, very in-depth.
“The legal world has fascinated me since childhood,” explains the French screenwriter and director during her visit to the Cinemania festival. “One day, I came across a podcast dedicated to restorative justice, and I found it really interesting. So, I went to find out, and it then became obvious to me that for cinema, it was a treasure. And it was a treasure for society as well. I also immediately saw that it would allow me to write scores the way I like: intense, and challenging, emotionally and intellectually. Strong things to play, for the performers. »
There was, in addition, what Jeanne Herry calls a “premium for novelty”. “Yes, because people know little, or poorly, about these protocols, these devices. It remains very little discussed in the public space. So the film also became an opportunity to shed light on this whole process, this whole universe. »
Specific and global
For the record, the filmmaker favored a similar approach in Pupil, which dealt with birth under X, social work, single-parent adoption, other social subjects in which the cinema has shown little or no interest. Thus, Jeanne Herry has once again created a gallery of characters representing all the parties concerned: victims, attackers, supervisors (professionals or volunteers).
The resulting portrait, in which Adèle Exarchopoulos, Élodie Bouchez, Dali Benssalah, Leïla Bekhti, Gilles Lellouche, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Denis Podalydès appear in particular, is both specific and global.
“It’s true that given that I don’t work from autobiographical material for my films, although, in this case, I hid behind the script to talk about myself, I try to have a panoramic view of things. I want to meet all the people, all the links in the chain. In order to consider, to understand everyone’s point of view, everyone’s goal…”
As in Pupil again, Jeanne Herry combines a very precise dramatic structure, an choral film required, and an almost documentary style. In other words, it’s fiction, but it’s incredibly authentic.
“Yes, I have a concern for realism: it’s very important to me. These are not documentary works, but documented works. I spend three to four months researching before I start writing anything, because I don’t know the subject inside out, and because I don’t want to say anything. However, studying reality completely frees the imagination. Once you master the subject, you know what your playing field looks like. You know how far you can go while remaining realistic. The rules, the protocols: we do that, but we don’t do that, for this or that reason… After having identified the field of possibilities, I take everything that is dramaturgically interesting, amusing, surprising, playful, and I work on from that. »
Crossed by emotion
In the same breath, Jeanne Herry admits to not being a fan of improvisation. His dialogues are, to use his expression, “very written”.
“Before filming, I take the time, with each performer, individually, to read all the dialogue. If certain words or expressions get stuck, I modify them, but once this step is completed, the scenario is solidified. »
Everything from punctuation marks to unexpected giggles.
“Exact: these little notes of humor, these little breaths of air in the drama, they are written in the script. Because life is funny and upsetting all at the same time. And then, the supervisors that I met, whether in France or in Quebec, they are like their justice: they are friendly, warm, funny… They have a blast: they are not at all in a sacrificial approach. It’s a job that they love, or it’s something they do to fill their retirement, to fill their life. These are not people who are in pain. So I wanted and had to show this vitality. »
After a short break, the filmmaker confides aside:
“I admit, if a film is too hard, if I feel like I’m being beaten in the face, I’m going to lash out, as a spectator. I try to get the audience to surrender, so that they can be overcome by emotion. »
Transcend the scenario
In this case, we are “crossed by emotion”: because we believe in the story, because we become attached to the characters… Like the participants, victims and criminals alike, we feel moments of discouragement, then real hope: we want them to get through it.
We think, for example, of Sabine, played by the immense Miou-Miou (the filmmaker’s mother in the city), who, as usual, blends into her role. Having become almost a recluse after an attack in the street, this septuagenarian declares during the third group session that she is going to stop coming, that it is too late for her, that her problems have forever compromised her relationship with her son…
“Each performer has one or two monologues with a climax emotional to fetch. This is Sabine’s big moment. During filming, I know it. But hey, it’s my mother, I’m filming my mother, it’s an emotional encounter in the film… I need her to break down, and I know she will be able to do it: she prepared for months ; she lived a lot with Sabine’s words… We barely did two takes, two and a half takes. You know, and it’s true for all actors, I need them to transcend the script. Although I spent a year and a half writing this material, without them, it is dead. »
During this sequence, we must see Issa (Birane Ba), a young repentant thief, jump from his seat and come to kneel in front of Sabine, with not only words of comfort on his lips, but the right words: those that Sabine had need to hear without knowing it.
Words that, perhaps, Issa was the only one who could say to him…
“In France, for a few weeks when the film was released, I became a bit of an ambassador for restorative justice, and it was an honor, because I find that there are really useful tools that we would have wrong to deprive ourselves, as a society. »
The film I will always see your faces hits theaters on November 17.