Mathieu Kassovitz
Mathieu Kassovitz is back in the director’s chair this week with his new movie Rebellion, which is based on a true story back in 1988.
But not only is Kassovitz at the helm of the film he has also penned the screenplay and stars in the lead role as Philippe Legorjus.
We caught up with the director to chat about the new movie, where his interest in the story came from and what lies ahead.
- Rebellion is your new movie so can you tell me a little bit about the film?
It is a new that happened in 1988 in New Caledonia, it is a French island next to Australia, and during the elections between Jacques Chirac and François Mitterrand independent freedom fighters attacked and killed four policemen and took thirty as hostages and hide them on a very small island.
It was during the middle of the elections so the result was they sent in the army and they killed everybody.
- You direct, write and star in the movie so where did this project start for you and what triggered your interest in this story?
There was different aspects that were fascinating for any director; first of all the real story, the government gave us a story, but then the real story was discovered by a journalist and wrote books about was way more amazing, interesting and, of course, different.
The Kanaks, people who were a victim of it, were very special and very interesting as they are a different civilisation and a different culture.
There was this character in the middles of it who was the captain of an elite SWAT team and he was torn between the orders that he was given and his own personal morality.
- You have just two hours to tell a very complex and political story that spans ten days so how tricky was the writing process?
Ten days and a hundred and fifty years. That was definitely the tricky part. We worked like journalists for ten years because we had to talk to people because that was part of the process.
So we got a lot of information from different sides and the problem was how to compile all of these different scenes and put them into two hours (laughs). There are also a lot of talking scenes and you have to keep it interesting.
That is the challenge as a director and a writer as you have to get your message through - you know what you want to talk about and everything that you are going to do is going to work towards that.
You are on a mission and you have something to say and a point to make and so you start to see very easily and interesting points pop out and that is what you are going to work around.
- As you say there was a huge research period as you were preparing for this movie so how much is that period something that you enjoy as a filmmaker?
Doing a movie like this and you start to try and find the truth about a story and it is a political it can get quite complicated. And also you are getting people involved who are still alive, this is not a story that is two hundred years old, people re still living and they are still involved in different aspects of political or activist life.
When you work in that kind of environment you have to be totally dedicated and you can’t really think twice and commit yourself a hundred per cent. So the process; making the movie, going to see the people, trying to figure out how you are going to get everyone to agree and actually doing that journalistic work is very enlightening.
I discovered the military world and I discovered also the Kanak world and a political world so it was very enlightening and fulfilling to work on projects like this. The journey of making personal movie like this is as interesting as the result.
- You take on the role of Philippe in the film so had you always intended to play this role from the start?
No I cast someone else before. But in the process of making it the Kanak asked me be that character because it was a controversial character for them and they wanted to take all responsibilities for it.
Also when I was prepping the movie and I was trying to make it work I became that captain because I was negotiating to be able to get my movie done. So I started to understand how he worked and I could see the good things in the Kanak and the bad things.
There would also one less actor to have trouble with and one less actor to work around (laughs). I didn’t want the story to be about him I wanted the story to be about what the audience would feel in his shoes.
So I didn’t want the actor to over do it and try to be an actor and so it was easier for me to do this and even if all the shots are around him I just wanted to use it as an empty shell for the audience to be in his shoes.
- As you say Rebellion is told from the point of view of Philippe Legorjus so how involved was he in the early stages of the writing process?
He was not in the writing process per say but he was very involved in trying to… he also wanted to use the work that we did around him to understand what happened because he only had his version of it - there were a few books written about it and we just tried to gather everything together.
So he was involved in that he taught me everything he knew and everything that he remembered and he tried to get as close to the way that he felt at that time. And my job was to relay his memories to other witnesses and relayed their memories back to him.
That is how we know that we have a movie that is very close to the truth because on both sides the different witnesses that were there were saying similar things - I don’t have one witness who came back to me and said ‘you are lying, it was not like that’. Every one was saying that it was close to what they had gone through.
- Malik Zidi and Daniel Martin are just a couple of the other names on the cast list so can you tell me a little bit about the casting process and what you were looking for as you were casting these important roles?
There were two parts to the casting process/ There were the Kanaks - I knew that there were not a lot of Kanak actors but I knew that I needed these guys because I couldn’t get some African actors to do this; it was not about being black it was about being Kanak,.
If it was the first time that they could have their voices heard I knew that I had to work with them. The other part was the military and I made a mix of real military such as ex-professional military as well as some young actors.
We trained like military and that was very useful for the last scene as we shot the last scene in real conditions. We trained as these guys trained in real life and we tried to understand the process.
But I also wanted the actors to be independent and to know their military grade and their military place when we were going of in formations as I didn’t want to say ‘you to your left’ or ‘hold your gun like this. I would say ‘everyone in formation’ and everyone would get into position and they would know what to do. Again the whole experience was very interesting.
- The music is also terrific in the film and you teamed up with Klaus Badlet to work on the score so how did you find working with him?
With movies like this you are trying to be as close to reality as you can and you don’t want to influence the audience with a score per say with violins and piano and romance - it is very easy to get people to cry if you add romantic of heart felt music to any images.
So I didn’t want to cheat people but we had to have a score - I didn’t want to have a score but we had to have one because the movie has to flow.
So we decided to make it very conceptual and I said ‘I want people to feel that something bad is going to happen’ and so we wanted the music to be like a machine and something that is evolving and not going to stop.
- As I said earlier you were director, actor and writer on this project so how difficult was it juggling all of these different elements?
They are complimentary and so it is not juggling. There is no better place than in front of the camera to direct everyone as you can say where you want the camera.
While I am acting with other actors I can influence their acting because if I am a director and behind the monitor there is nothing I can do before the end of the scene.
So it is complementary and, for me, it is natural. You have to write your ideas, then you want to direct your ideas and then you want to edit your ideas and you act in it because it is simple.
- How have you found the response to the movie so far?
Right now it in England it has been interesting. It is funny because every time you go to a different country or a different location you get different questions and you always wonder what questions you are going to get from different journalists. The ones that are coming back here are interesting.
It has been a year for me now and it is nice to come back and confront this movie with new viewers and new audiences.
You are not French so there is not the same relationship with the story but it is great to see how universal the story is and how people can understand and relate to it. We all have the same problems this is not a French problem as governments lying and manipulating people you can see that everywhere.
- Finally what is next for you?
I have no idea (laughs). I have moved to Los Angeles and I am living there right now and so the idea is to make a movie over there.
- So you are quite interested in trying to break into Hollywood?
Yeah, it was a dream of mine. I have broke in a couple of times and I have broken out a couple of times (laughs). But it is all about finding the right partners and the right project. There are a lot of amazing movies that are made in Hollywood and I really want to be a part of that.
When you can do what ever you want then you are not really challenged and you need to challenge yourself and I challenge myself with this movie a lot. I am not sure how I can top that at the moment and so for now I want to work on other people’s projects.
Rebellion is out now.