Peter Dourountzis and Lawrence Valin, members of the Sang Neuf jury at the sixth edition of the Reims Polar Festival, are injecting new blood into the French genre scene. Paris Match caught up with them.
The choice of genre cinema
Peter Dourountzis: Personally, I’m not a huge fan of genre cinema. Anyway, I’m not enough of a cinephile to know everything. But, for me, it’s a gateway. The viewer reads the pitch and grasps the film’s atmosphere. I feel like I use the genre to help the audience enter the plot more easily. With Lawrence, we are not yet authors with a sufficiently identified universe, so it also helps to build his confidence in the film’s content.
Lawrence Valin: Thrillers are universal, action, suspense, genre codes. When I wrote “Little Jaffna,” I had Martin Scorsese’s and James Gray’s cinema in mind, especially Martin Scorsese, what he did in the early films with the Italian community in New York is remarkable, how, through the genre, he speaks about very intimate and personal things. And as Peter very aptly said, it allows the viewer to understand that okay, it will be an infiltration film, but beyond the codes, I will reveal something to you. There is also an entertainment aspect. For “Little Jaffna,” I didn’t want to make a boring film, a simple documentary on the Tamil community in Paris and the conflict in Sri Lanka. It’s already burdensome, it’s already quite heavy to bear. I thought to myself: “I want something that sparks, that at some point makes you travel while you’re in the heart of Paris. I truly care about the audience’s enjoyment. For every shot, for every sequence, I ask myself: “Would little Lawrence have found this scene cool?” I want to keep that childlike thing. It’s like a game, we have to have fun.
Pleasure of staging
Peter Dourountzis: It’s essential. Organizing set-pieces is thrilling. You end up with a clear stake, clearly identified. Even when there is no stake yet, you immediately find yourself in an arena, with an atmosphere. You can afford to reveal a bit, to stretch the genre.
Lawrence Valin: Yes, it’s also mixing the grammar of films you loved. Some American cinema, some South Korean films, you make a Melting-Pot out of it and it becomes Lawrence Valin’s (laughs). When I imagined the chase at the beginning of my film, I saw an Indian Tom Cruise running (laughs). But we don’t have the means of Tom Cruise to block all the streets in Paris, so we did it in a wild way. But yes, there is a real pleasure in creating your scenes.
Peter Dourountzis: It’s exhilarating to redo the shots you loved.
Lawrence Valin: Plus, you can communicate your pleasure. The hob trick (at the beginning of his film), I took it from a Korean film. And during the screenings, they told me: “Is it a tribute to Asterix and Obelix?” (Laughs). When I saw “Rapaces,” the final scene at the restaurant Napoléon, that was a slap.
Peter Dourountzis: Discovering the menu is a De Palma shot, anyway, that’s how I presented it to my DP. A dive, a fairly slow zoom, that’s De Palma’s grammar. But the most superior pleasure is to build your own scene.
Lawrence Valin: Yes, and it adds legitimacy. If you say: “It’s going to be a Lawrence Valin chase,” people will think you have a huge ego. So to reassure everyone, you say that “it’s Martin Scorsese, it’s Sergio Leone.” It’s still too early to say: “It’s my universe,” but the film, as it stands, is exactly what I had in mind. For a director, I think it’s important to find your identity, your touch. From the first film on, it’s necessary because it will allow you, for the next ones, to gather people who liked your universe, to then make the next one.
Context: Interview with Peter Dourountzis and Lawrence Valin discussing their approach to genre cinema and the pleasure of staging scenes.
Fact Check: The individuals discussed their cinematic influences and the importance of creating their unique style within the French film industry.
