Where did you get the idea of the 'Harry' character appearing out of the blue? - When I first started thinking about the story, my girlfriend and I were in the throes of young parenthood. Our everyday life was in constant havoc due to our two little daughters: endless practical problems to solve, the lack of time and sleep, the irritation and exhaustion... There always comes a time when you can’t take any more and you wonder out loud, 'How the hell did I get myself into this mess?' I realised that most of my friends who had kids were going through the same experience. That made me smile, and I wondered what would happen if a character suddenly came into my life who externalised all my doubts and frustrations and self-questioning and pursued them to their logical conclusion! The script is very subtly written. You play with the audience. - I like films that frighten me but also make me enjoy being frightened, like THE SHINING or THE BIRDS. Harry’s solutions are scary but also enjoyable. They’re scary because they’re criminal, but enjoyable because they’re liberating. It was important not to give the game away too soon. The role of Harry, for example, had to be played by someone you like and feel you can trust. Sergi Lopez’s affability brings a huge amount to the part. I don’t like films where you can spot the bad guy at first sight and you’re just waiting for awful things to happen. I’m not interested in assaulting the audience. I want to draw them into my film and make them enjoy it, even the scary scenes. For the record, I’m not encouraging anyone to 'do a Harry' on his parents or his girlfriend. The film opens on a couple driving in their car with their three little girls. The tension in the air as the situation deteriorates is viewed with lots of humour. Within seconds, the tone is set. - All my memories of setting off on summer vacation are ghastly. When I was little, there were four of us kids in the back. In the traffic jams and sweltering heat, one of us was always sick! Obviously, it conflicts with the idea we like to have of vacations being all about pleasure and relaxation. I think everybody has more or less been there and can identify with the scene and laugh at it. I love my daughters, but there are always times when you want to strangle your offspring! Michel and Harry went to the same high school twenty years before. When they meet again, they seems to be worlds apart. - Michel has a pragmatic, live-and-let-live attitude. He thinks he does a good job of handling his everyday life and tries to avoid conflict, be it with his wife, his parents or anyone else. Harry has a much more drastic philosophy: every problem has a solution. Not just a quick fix, but a solution that thoroughly eradicates the problem. Harry is disappointed to find his old classmate Michel bogged down in petty hassles, and is determined to help him. When I started writing, I had no idea that Harry’s solutions would be so drastic. As I went further, urged on by my co-scriptwriter Gilles Marchand, I found myself getting caught up in my own game. What was it about Harry’s personality that interested you most? - His sincerity. It was the first thing I said to Sergi about his character. Harry is all of a piece. He is sincere in his love for Plum and his wish to help Michel. He never acts cynically or manipulatively. There is nothing perverse about him. At high school, he developed a kind of fixation on Michel and his 'talent' as a writer. He wants to make Michel happy. Unlike Michel, Harry isn’t a man of compromise. To that extent, he’s rather childlike. He’ll do anything to get what he wants. So this ongoing teenage fascination is what binds Harry to Michel? - Yes. It’s quite a bizarre fascination, since Harry and Michel apparently didn’t have much to do with each other at school. What sparked it off was this poem that Michel published in the school magazine, which impressed Harry so dramatically. I was tickled by the dis- parity between the ordinariness of the poem and the huge impression it made on Harry. You never can tell what will spark off an obsession between two individuals. Harry and Plum make an odd couple! - There’s a sincerity in their love. Plum is a little bit the stereotypical bimbo who is kept by a wealthy man. I like to play with clichés, letting their true character emerge as the story unfolds. Plum is no fool. In the scene where she’s depilating her legs and she asks “When can we go to the Matterhorn?', she knows what she’s doing. She senses that Harry is slipping away from her. Harry is also a movie about creativity. To be able to write again, Michel has to undergo a string of ordeals: he has to confront his past, his doubts, bereavement, the blank page... The film could be one long dream of Michel’s, interspersed with nightmares. Can it be seen as a metaphor? - I wouldn’t want to deny anyone their interpretation of the film. On the contrary, it’s fun! What matters most is that the story works on its own. From then on, you can read it on other levels. Through Harry, Michel’s teenage ambitions come back to haunt him. As teenagers, we have all sorts of dreams that we hope will come true, and then they shrink or disappear as the realities of life take over. We’ve all abandoned some of our childhood dreams. Is there another possible reading of your film: Harry is Michel’s subconscious, his 'id', wanting to live out all his urges, always following the pleasure principle, while Michel is the 'superego', inhibited and bound by rules and the desires of others? - Absolutely. This reading appeared to me while I was writing but I didn’t try to theorise about it. Harry does indeed act as a catalyst on Michel’s doubts and desires. You can also imagine that Harry is a 'projection' or 'invention' of Michel’s, because he needed him just at that moment. There’s a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde side there. The film’s poetry and humour are enriched by visual tricks: a vision of a flying monkey, a close-up of eggs looking like buxom breasts... - Cinema is also the art of visual pleasure. It’s an aspect that really attracts me. I enjoy playing around with the imagination. One thing about movie-making that fascinates me is the way you can create very strong effects with very simple methods: an extreme close-up, a dolly shot, a dissolve, a sound etc. I love exploring that kind of thing, even if I use them sparingly so they’re always working for the story. In the films of Hitchcock, my favourite film-maker, you can always sense the pleasure of creation, the urge to experiment. His movies have such an amazing plastic beauty, I get an almost physical kick out of them. You don’t show any violence and yet it’s there, suggested with such subtlety that the viewer feels it with unusual intensity. - We’re used to seeing violence in every shape and form. It’s become so banal that it’s lost all its meaning. Gruesome scenes designed to thrill the audience leave me cold. It’s very easy to shock. I get much more fun out of creating tension by suggestion, not having blood spilt all over the screen. You direct your actors with similar restraint. - I don’t like hysteria. If the scene is strong already, there’s no point. I prefer restrained performances. I ask the actors to keep it in, rather than let it all out. It doesn’t make their emotions any less intense. Tell us how you picked your actors. - I wanted Harry to be really likeable and it’s hard to find anyone more likeable than Sergi Lopez. Up until now, he has practically only ever played nice guys. I was glad to be able to offer him a role that goes much further. Right from the first screen tests, I could see he was going to be able to go all the way to madness without losing the sincerity I wanted, which would make him that much more disturbing. His howl in the car in the night is terrifying! - Sergi was very tense before that scene. After we shot it, he turned to me in surprise and said, 'I didn’t know I could howl like that!' Laurent Lucas is outstanding, too. - I had only seen him in supporting roles before, but each time he made them into strong, striking characters. Laurent has an intensity that comes from small details. I like the economy of his acting style a lot. Mathilde Seigner and Sophie Guillemin both play women who contrast strongly with the male parts. - To counterbalance the rather introverted personality of Michel, I needed an actress with a real temperament to play the part of Claire. Mathilde Seigner has exactly that energy and pizzazz. A real character! I thought Sophie Guillemin was excellent in L’ENNUI. She’s surprising, and she has that offbeat, fresh side to her that perfectly fits the role of Plum. Sergi, Laurent, Mathilde and Sophie each have different ways of constructing their characters and going about a scene. When I brought all four of them together for the first time, I was scared to death. I had no idea how the recipe would turn out! I realised very soon that it worked like a charm. >> back