Remarkable at 70, the lean, gorgeous and incredibly youthful iconic French actress, has two films in the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival (AFFFF) and recently premiered two new movies at Berlinale. And that’s not mentioning her stage performances.
We met in Berlin for the umpteenth time as she premiered My New Friends, her second film with French director Andre Techine; and A Traveller’s Needs, her third with South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo, which took out the Grand Jury (or second) prize.
In Venice, she had premiered another Asia-set film, Sidonie in Japan, and it screens at AFFFF, as does The Sitting Duck, one of her best. Huppert’s portrayal as real-life whistle-blower, Maureen Kearney, certainly is one worth seeing.
You have two films in Berlin and two in the French Film Festival in Australia.
“I have a good friend in Australia and she texted me about that yesterday.”
Four films all at once. How do you do it? It’s like in Call My Agent! where you’re running around doing many things at once.
“No, it wasn’t like that. I did the films over three years.”
You never seem to stop working.
“Yes, I do.”
What do you do when you stop working?
“Nothing.”
Really? Can you do that?
“I find it very hard. It was Marguerite Duras who said how difficult it is to do nothing. But to do nothing, really nothing, it’s not so pleasant. It’s not that it is difficult, but it’s not so pleasant.”
The mind starts doing things when you do nothing.
“Yes, maybe. But what does it mean to do nothing? Sleep? Dream? Lying on your bed? I don’t know.”
In My New Friends, your policewoman character is lonely and befriends her neighbours who are anarchists, on the other side of the law.
“I like the way that Andre Techine shows loneliness in the film. He really insisted for me to never be sad or melancholic, he wanted to go against that idea.”
In A Traveller’s Needs [above] your character is also lonely.
“Yes, she’s very lonely. But I think she is also very funny, most of the time.”
Are you attracted to this lonely kind of character?
“I think you show a lot of things by showing a lonely character in films. It’s almost like you could set a whole world around this loneliness. And in fact, that’s exactly what happens in both films, even though there is very little that you can compare between them. They’re two totally different visions from each director, two totally different worlds even if there are certain similarities.”
Both films place your character in a new environment.
“Hong always sees me in the same way, being a little surprised by what I see or as I question people because there are so many differences between France and Korea. In Andre’s film, she is also so different from the young anarchists. She’s a policewoman, she’s on the side of order. And he’s an anarchist and is also an artist. That’s interesting.”
Does this mean that if you are an artist, you necessarily rebel? Have you ever flirted with being a radical?
“No, No.”
Did you have any radical friends when you were young?
“Yes, maybe when I was very young. Everyone grew up with it.”
The ‘68 protests were huge in France.
“Yes, in ‘68 maybe when I was at school, but some of the young guys were more radical than I was.”
The film [My New Friends, above] shows a very French angle where people are very, very proactive. And then against that background, even if she is a policewoman, she tries to find a connection with the other people.
“I think it’s also interesting to see another side of the police; the fact that the film starts out with the police demonstration and we see them as a group of people with their own problems, missing out on life and lacking personal attention. Eventually in the story you find out that her husband had been a policeman, and he killed himself. In a very subtle way Andre wanted to change perceptions and to humanise the character.”
I think she felt like she needed to do something with her life. She’s getting older, she’s lonely and wants not to just do the job and to do other things. Do you feel like that sometimes?
“Me? No!! I’m perfectly fulfilled with what I do. But yes, she’s ready to meet these new people, her new neighbours. Yet, finally she ends up alone again and I like that. You could imagine many, many endings to the film, you don’t even know if she will see them again. I like this kind of big question mark at the end.”
The film marks only your second film with Techine after 1979’s The Bronte Sisters.
“Obviously over the years we saw each other, sometimes with the idea that we wanted to work together again and it was a nice feeling to finally do it.”
You’re about to turn 71, but we never think of you as aging. You never seem to change at all.
“Thank you very much.”
You have a joie de vivre maybe because you really love what you do.
“Yeah, that’s for sure. That’s a privilege, you know, to do something you love to do. Of course, so many people do things that they don’t love to make a living. Every day I think it’s such a privilege.”
Physically you don’t seem to need to change yourself much from movie to movie.
“I do change, of course.”
But we don’t see a huge transformation.
“No, but I think each story makes you look different. You have to rely on that. I understand they are not major changes, but I try to change. And also, I like to experience different ways of making films.
“Both Andre Techine and Hong Sang-soo are really major directors. Hong [below, leading the way for Huppert at Berlinale] is for me a genius. He makes films quickly; A Traveller’s Needs took 13 days.”
That’s why you can make so many movies?
“Yes!”
Are you going to work again in the English language?
“Yes, I want to do this film in the States. I can’t talk about it, because for the moment it’s still coming together.”
You have acted three times with your daughter, Lolita Chammah. Would you like to do that again?
“I would love to, sure. But on Michele Placido’s film, Caravaggio’s Shadow, we didn’t have any scenes together. Actually, we never were on set on the same day. But she’s really great in the film. She’s brilliant.”
Lolita Chammah and Isabelle Huppert in Copacabana
Are you performing on the stage?
“I’m rehearsing a play, Berenice, with Romeo Castellucci and I have an opening night in four days’ time. We start in Montpellier, in the south of France and then we bring it to Paris at the beginning of March at the Theatre de la Ville. And then I will bring it to Milano, to the Piccolo.”
And the UK?
“In the UK, I will bring another production with Robert Wilson called Mary Said which I did many, many times already. I will do that at the Barbican at the beginning of May.”
Wow! You don’t work too much?
“No, because in the meantime April will be free.”
What is it about Robert Wilson that you like so much? Do you feel a greater freedom when you’re on the stage?
“I never really feel free [with Wilson], but I feel free with Romeo Castellucci. He’s an amazing visionary. He makes something completely unusual and very, very special, but within this world which is so strong and so powerful. I think I feel completely myself. And when you see the show, you will understand how much myself I am, but I’m not going to tell you more.”
Still, Robert Wilson is a master.
“Yes. Of course. He’s really a major director.”
When you work with him, it’s not really English in some ways, is it? It’s Robert Wilson.
“It’s Robert Wilson, yes. He has his own language. No English, no French. You’re absolutely right. That’s what makes him so powerful. It’s a Robert Wilson language. That’s it.”
Sidonie in Japan and The Sitting Duck are screening at the 2024 Alliance Francaise French Film Festival
Source link
#Isabelle #Huppert #Language #FilmInk