Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Some spoilers below forClimax.
Sometimes we cant tell if the dancers are dancing or losing their minds; often, it doesnt matter.
For Noe, its all expressive movement; even the camera crew seems to have become unhinged.
Where did this idea come from?
What does it all mean?
What does his dad, the legendary Argentine artist Luis Felipe Noe, think of it?
Does Santa Claus exist?
These are just some of the questions we wind up discussing during our chat.
I expected a much worse response, and they gave me an award for the actors.
And then all these magazines that trashed the previous one were saying good things about this one.
Theyre not losers like most of the characters of my previous movies.
And then the whole collective project falls into pieces.
They told me I could shoot it in 15 days for a small sum of money.
Its not about the message.
Some of them were extremely gay, some of them were very straight, some of them were foreigners.
Some of them had never been to France, like the African dancers.
Was the plan always to depict how this community breaks down?Yeah.
If I make a happy, happy movie one day, Ill think its dull.
I like laughing about cruel things because life is cruel.
I cannot keep myself from making it funny.
But when I talk to some other people they say, Oh, that movies so violent.
For me the graphic violence in the movie is just funny.
And I enjoy how much he likes playing with the audience.
I probably would be very happy with a serious melodrama in which people could cry.
I like crying in life.
I like hugging those I love.
But some people have an adolescent approach to life, and maybe its time for me to change.
For example, when I see2001: A Space Odysseyby Kubrick, theres nothing adolescent in it.
Its a very mature movie.
When I see Dreyers movies likeDay of Wrath, its really mature.
If Im lucky Ill do one day a very serious drama.
But it would certainly be less commercial.
Do you feel like your reputation as a provocateur precedes you?Why do all English-speaking persons sayprovocateur?
Theres not an English word for it?
It sounds like the French have to play the perv in the room.
Oh, lets go for a French actor to play the perv.
It makes no sense.
There are so many directors that I admire who I thought were just guys with guts.
You see this one?Theres a guy getting slashed every 15 seconds.
And its a very amusing movie.
You watch that like you could watch an old Batman series.
Its playful, its funny, and totally out of this world.
It should be the opposite!
Its sexist, its this, its that.
I dont see why the imitation of killing is cool and the imitation of love is perceived as evil.
Talk about the schizophrenia of the Western world.
It was just a funny or cruel mutation of life.
When you read a Dickens book, you know its a novel.
And people like going to the cinema.
The movie is more about alcohol than it is about drugs.
And the worst situations Ive seen among my friends were mostly linked to alcohol.
Some people when theyre drunk, they become someone else.
They become hyperreptilian, and those people then turn into monsters.
But the alcohol has been spiked, too, right?Yeah, but slightly.
Probably its more the placebo effect.
you’ve got the option to try yourself.
It all seems rather symbolic.
You have this very diverse cast.
One girl who says shes pregnant and one guy who says that he doesnt drink.
You know, the way they express themselves, its incredible.
So, the process of casting was not preconscious.
Then the French team won the World Cup.
This film does feel more political than your other work.Is it political?
No, its just synchronized with some feeling that we all have in the world.
That is almost like a horror movie.
And when people are afraid, it doesnt really make them have wings.
You were born in Argentina.
Four years later, they went back to Argentina.
Of course, I feel at home when Im in Argentina.
I feel even more at home when Im in France.
I never felt the need to fight for any flag.
you could fight for your ideas, but not for a flag.
Then he had seenNovecentoby Bertolucci andLa Grande Bouffeby Marco Ferreri.
He was sending me comic books so I could start learning French.
I was asking my parents, What does Paris or France look like?
They knew I was obsessed with cinema; I was watching one movie a day in Argentina.
Oh, there are movie theaters everywhere.
And, well, people are not as clean as Argentines.
The moment I arrived, I just adopted the country because there were so many movie theaters.
It was like you went to a cheap amusement park and then you got into a bigger one.
It had the most extreme, sexual, political kind of humor.
I felt I had finally arrived to a free world.
Thats why many artists and directors and writers end up moving to Paris.
It is becoming more and more like the artistic center of Europe.
Whatever Europes going to become.
What is Europe going to become?I dont know, but I think hippie times are over.
But you were never a hippie.As a kid I wanted to be a hippie.
Humans are humans, and humans are animals.
I never smoked until five years ago, and then I started smoking.
And in other countries its the opposite.
The laws are changing.
And people get used to the new laws so quick that its scary.
Did you fit in, as a child from Argentina?My name Gaspar has no ethnic connotation.
I never felt I was at home in any country.
But I never felt like an immigrant.
There is this coffee culture that does not exist in the States.
There are all kind of ethnicities.
I think in the rest of the planet, the situation is becoming more tense every day.
I just went to Brazil and people are afraid of walking at night in Rio and Sao Paulo.
Like, everybody goes back home at ten in their car.
There is more street violence; there is more of everything.
But I live in Paris, and Paris is not France.
I feel like the characters in your films are often very lonely.
Even when theyre in groups inClimaxorIrreversible, say everything fragments and people wind up by themselves.
And the films are very internalized.Can I ask you a question?
Do you think its not like that in real life?
You tell me.I made a movie calledSeul Contre Tous, which means alone against everybody.
[Note: It was released in English asI Stand Alone.]
I think life is being alone among everybody.
If youre alone in your perception, youre alone with your life.
As a viewer you know shes pregnant, but the girl who kicks her doesnt.
So it was the second time in my movies that the same scene appears.
The context is different, but the trick is the same.
Im good for putting nonactors in a conflict and mood in which they can express themselves.
But its got to be more than a trick.
Its not just about whats a convenient narrative thing to happen here?
Its a very raw, hurtful moment.
It must come from somewhere.
Its a responsibility to reproduce the species.
Some other people dont care.
Sometimes they have abortions, sometimes not.
And theyre now taking care of kids that they did not deserve with a girl they barely knew.
Having a family is not a dream for me.
What does your dad think of your movies?You know, its weird.
The last one is his favorite.
The one he liked the least isLove.
And his other favorite isEnter the Void.
For me, watchingThe Bitter Tears of Petra von Kantat age 10 was like a very radical experience.
I said, Well, whats going on?
Whats going on with these women?
She said, These characters are lesbians.
Women can love other women.
I said, Oh, yeah?
Yeah, theyre a couple, but they dont love each other.
So, my mother was explaining to me what was a dysfunctional lesbian story.
If I have a kid one day, I will treat my kid as a young adult.
I will have a go at inform them about all the things that are going to come next.
Im shocked when I have friends who say, Oh, Santa Claus is coming.
I say, Hey, dont turn them stupid.
Dont turn your kid into another little lamb.
Say that youre giving the gifts and thats all.
And dont tell them that God exists probably somewhere.
Dont tell them that theres good and evil.
Tell them the truth.
One thing I noticed was not there I didnt see any musicals.I dont like musicals.
I like dancing, and I like watching good club dancers.
But Im seriously not attracted to the genre called musical comedy.
I liked watching Travolta dancing inSaturday Night Fever.
But if there is a musical comedy coming out in Paris, Ill never go to see it.
Not because of the dancing.
The problem with musical comedies is that the dialogue scenes in between are so annoying.
Its like when you watch the Marx Brothers movies when theyre funny, theyre funny.
But in the meantime you have these musical scenes that are annoying.
Youre not listening to us.
Its because Im hypnotized by the hand movements of the female dancers from the Bollywood movies.
What about the films of Jacques Demy?
Or Christophe Honore?Yeah, I likeLes Parapluies de Cherbourg.
Yeah,Les Parapluies de Cherbourgis a great movie.
And I also remember that I enjoyed very much the Milos Forman adaptation ofHairwhen it came out.
But not enough to watch it twice.
And on the other hand, I watched … whats the name of the movie with Jennifer Beals?
But I couldnt stand anybody else talking in the movie.
It was the same when I saw Elizabeth Berkley inShowgirls.
I was hypnotized by Elizabeth Berkley, but in the case ofShowgirls, I liked the movie.
But yeah, sometimes youre just an animal with a genetic code and some desires.
Did you ever see Sion SonosTokyo Tribe?Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
I think if I had to say which was my last good musical-comedy experience, thats the one.
Its very playful, very funny, and its a very energetic feel-good movie.
Id be happy to watch it twice.
But its not inside a feature-film context; its inside a short music-video context.
So, the internet has been good for dancing and bad for porn.I dont know.
I never, never got horny watching any explicit sex on a computer or on a cellular phone.
I enjoyed erotic comic books.
I enjoyed magazines containing photos from erotic movies or porn movies.
I enjoyed watching porn on VHS.
I was a masturbation junkie as a teenager.
I like erotic images, but I dont like erotic images that are made in a cold context.
