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Why have you returned to the documentary thirty years after General Idi Amin Dada?
- I never abandoned the documentary. After Amin Dada, I made a real documentary, KoKo, a
Talking Gorilla, a philosphical movie ‘starring’ a gorilla who had a real presence at all times. Next
came another ‘monster’, Charles Bukowski, who had loved the Amin Dada film. With him, I tried to
make something like a series of fifty aphorisms, little monologues: The Charles Bukowski Tapes.
Another real documentary. But in any case I approach all my fiction films as documentaries.
I am a great believer in the oft-repeated phrase: “Every great film is a documentary“.
Can you give us an example?
- In the case of Reversal of Fortune, we had a documentary obligation to follow the interviews that
were on file, in other words, what Von Bülow and others had declared to the police. We were ob-
liged to respect, not the letter but the ‘spirit’ of what was described in the depositions. These
scenes weren’t invented; they are reality, somewhat reinterpreted. But even when you’re making
a documentary, you interpret, you fabricate a reality. So conversely, I always approach docu-
mentaries as if they were fictions.
As in General Idi Amin Dada, you have introduced a fictional element to documentary
material, you treat Vergès and Amin Dada as fictional characters...
- Absolutely! Vergès is definitely a character from a novel. When you’re dealing with the life of
such a character, it’s always incredible. An avalanche of questions arise, certainly more than
those surrounding his disappearance... Are you dealing with a great figure of historic importance
or an infamous conman? An innocent man wrongly presumed guilty, or a guilty man presumed in-
nocent?
What made you choose Vergès as the subject of a film?
- This film exists thanks to the fierce determination of my producer Rita Dagher. But my con-
nection to Vergès is very strong: a link through life and political memories. When I was 14, 15
years old, I followed exactly the same political path as Vergès. I was some 20 years younger than
him, I joined the communists even though they didn’t really want me, then left them to align myself
more closely with the movement in support of Algeria, while criticizing the communists for not
doing enough for that cause. Exactly like Vergès. I followed everything he said or did, assiduously:
I was a real fan! And of Siné’s drawings too.
How far did you follow Vergès path and how do you view his evolution?
- I felt very close to the Algerian cause, but shortly after independence, Ben Bella made a speech
saying that, now, they were going to take care of Israel and I was shocked. At that time, I knew a
lot about the Holocaust, and nothing about the Palestinian cause, and for me it was a crushing
disappointment, seeing this great struggle ending up in one country’s waging war against another.
Vergès’ trajectory grew ever more incomprehensible to me, but I always dreamt of knowing more
about this character, whom I viewed also as a perverse and decadent aesthete.
While we were filming 'Reversal of Fortune', the lawyer Alan Dershovitz (who also declared that
he would be “prepared to defend Hitler“), reawakened my curiosity by talking to me of his great
admiration for Vergès, the inventor of the “rupture strategy“.
He became something of a mystery!
Exactly! While at the beginning he was a heroic figure for me, he became a somewhat repulsive
mystery... but as I love ‘monsters’, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth!
But really, what thrilled me most was the opportunity, through Vergès, of making a film about con-
temporary history, about our experience of the last 50 years, about what I too have lived through
since the age of 13. So it’s also a film about my own political history, a look at my own life.
Certainly, it’s not the same view I had while I was living through these events... The angle of blind
terrorism allows us a new perspective that reveals a great deal about the last fifty years. And, un-
fortunately, about the decades to come.
Was the film conceived as a piece of cinema or as an inquiry?
- I didn’t want a direct connection between what is said and what is shown. I wanted ricochets,
short cuts, reflections, interior echoes. Thus when I talk about a love story, I’m in fact talking
about terrorism, and when I speak of terrorism, it’s from the perspective of a love story. It’s these
ricochets, these echoes that thrill me, because that’s how the cinema I love works. You don’t
embark on some journalistic discourse in order to prove a proposition; you adopt a ‘fictional’, po-
etic approach. But this is also a detective movie. I was the chief detective, aided by my accom-
plice Eugénie Grandval who led the enquiry and filmed the interviews armed only with a little high-
definition camera. I truly wanted this film to be as gripping as any thriller or spy movie.
You avoid voice-over, and remain as much as possible in the background, above all never
appearing onscreen. Could you explain this stylistic choice and the impact it had on your
film?
- It’s a bit like with Amin Dada, the idea is to allow things to speak for themselves; the film’s dis-
course must be a cinematic discourse, conveyed through the editing. We understand the dis-
course through the editing, there’s no voice-over explaining everything, just images that suggest:
the viewer is left to do some of the work. My collaboration with the editor Nelly Quettier was es-
sential in this respect. We had to find a narrative and to remain always within this narrative, with
the characters. And above all, never miss an opportunity to highlight conflict, suspense, and those
moments when something could really happen.
Your use of a symphonic score is also surprising.
The film is conceived entirely as a work of fiction. Jorge Arriagada’s music is there to reinforce
every fictional element: it indicates to us the love stories about which are characters do not wish
to speak. So we have Djamila’s theme, a similar, if less elevated theme for Magdalena, themes for
the Palestinian freedom fighters, to help us understand the ideals for which they were fighting at
the time. The entire score acts as in a fiction film, to underline moments of tension, drama and
heightened emotion.
What were you choices and priorities with regard to the image?
- I was one of the first to shoot high-definition, on Our Lady of the Assassins, and I was champing
at the bit to return to it. For this film, we used two cameras, which allowed us to achieve every-
thing we wanted with the image. I wanted to go straight to what was essential, and not to waste
time filming characters outside the interview situations. That was my narrative thread. So I in-
sisted on eloquence in the framing and the locations. With first Caroline Champetier and later
Jean-Luc Perreard we spent a long time finding resonances between the settings and the characters.
Could you talk a little about the film’s structure?
- The entire film takes place as follows: there’s a magnificent, heroic heart, which is Algeria. This
is the matrix, the place where our lead character finds himself, reveals himself, experiences the
most intense moments of his life. Here is also where he lives out the most beautiful love story im-
aginable. All of this is something very beautiful, very pure: an ideal. Then, with Algerian indepen-
dence, everything stops and our protagonist finds himself, in my view, without the possibility of
carrying on. But for the rest of his life he yearns to recapture these moments, or something very
close to them, whatever the price. Often in our lives, there’s something very pure, and then later
things are corrupted.
But what’s interesting is that these things become corrupted when they are desired to remain pure.
It’s almost paradoxical, because in fact, it’s by wanting to relive this extraordinary love story he
shared with Djamila that he goes on to live something entirely ridiculous in comparison with his
first love. The story repeats itself as a grotesque caricature. This is the theme of Hitchcock’s
'Vertigo' (and one which I explored in 'Our Lady of the Assassins)' where the main character
yearns to relive that which has absolutely not the same quality the second time. It’s pathetic and
painful at the same time. Thus we discover that terrorism itself follows a similar evolutionary path
to that of our protagonist.
Could you talk a little about Carlos and his relationship with Vergès ?
Again we are in the midst of a truly “fictional” richness. On paper, it’s an extraordinary situation.
A lawyer falls in love with a prisoner, but the prisoner is the wife of a major terrorist who has set
about drowning Europe in blood to free her, while the lawyer has clandestine meetings with the
terrorist group in order to secure her escape. Then, once she’s free, she tells him: “No, I can’t
stay with you, I absolutely have to go back to him!“. That’s a somewhat “interpreted” description,
but there’s amazing dramatic material here! The relationship between Carlos and Vergès is abso-
lutely a passionate one; we see that at the beginning there was a great sympathy, a grand cam-
araderie. Their relationship must have been of a similar order as the one with Anis Naccache,
who said they were in absolute accord with each other, that they understood each other perfectly.
The betrayals, real or imagined, came later ...
Can you say something about Hans Joachim Klein, a very singular figure in the world of terrorism ?
- He’s an incredible character, a bit removed from Vergès’ story, but I wanted to put him in the
film as a vessel of hope. Klein made the decision to send back his gun, to take an enormous risk
by renouncing violence and disappearing. For me it’s the “happy ending” which comes before the
film’s finished and which we keep with us, a ray of hope. Without it, the film would be entirely des-
pairing.
How do you stand in relation to Vergès? For or against?
I don’t take a position! My whole idea is to allow the characters to speak. I want to allow things to
unfold, to follow the thread which allows me to trace the history of contemporary terrorism through
the destinies of many interlinked characters whose paths cross again and again. That’s it! And
really, the film isn’t a portrait of Vergès. His life remains unexplored except in so far as it is directly
linked with terrorism.
How has your relationship with Vergès developed from the beginning of shooting to the moment he saw the finished film?
- Our relationship has always been extremely cordial. From the beginning he accepted some-
thing I’ve always insisted on in my Hollywood films: final cut, meaning choosing those interviewed
and the right to decide the final edit. This was essential for me; I told him moreover that I thought it
very brave of him. He asked me why and I replied that personally I would never allow such a film
to be made about me... too many skeletons in the closet! He laughed.
Now, he has seen the film, I visit him from time to time and he always manages to avoid truly tel-
ling me how badly he thinks of the film and of me... Anyway, he says that I am treacherous and
that he is my victim...
Interviewed by Regine Vial, April 2007
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