Ozon returns to under the sand territory with this strangely uplifting story of a young gay man’s coming to terms with his terminal illness. Romain (Poupaud) leads a perfect life as a trendy fashion designer with a hunky boyfriend. When he discovers he’s sick, he decides to reject treatment and divulge his secret to no one – except his gran (Moreau) as he attempts to reconcile his mortality. Moving without being overly sentimental, time to leave is Ozon at his finest.
WARNING: some aspects of the film plot for TIME TO LEAVE are reveal in this interview.
What inspired you to tell the story of a young man’s journey toward death?
It all started with an idea I had to do a trilogy about mourning. The trilogy began with UNDER THE SAND, a “tearless melodrama” about coping with the death of a loved one. TIME TO LEAVE is about coping with one’s own death. And the third installment, which I may make someday, will address the death of a child.
In UNDER THE SAND, death is treated as an open question. In TIME TO LEAVE, denial is not an option. The film careens straight toward Romain’s death…
In UNDER THE SAND, Jean’s death is not confirmed, so we can choose not to believe it, we can deny its existence. In TIME TO LEAVE death is a reality, definite. I didn’t want to leave any room for ambiguity about Romain’s chances for survival, there are none. That is why I chose terminal cancer. And the fact that the character is young makes his illness all the more cruel. There is no suspense or mystery about it. As opposed to UNDER THE SAND, where we never see Jean drown and there is no body. With TIME TO LEAVE on the other hand, I wanted to see the body disintegrating, I wanted to accompany Romain on his journey toward death and explore the different phases he goes through, from anger to denial… to acceptance.
One might have imagined that Romain’s illness would be AIDS rather than
cancer…
I needed a disease with no possible remission, and fortunately today it is possible to live with AIDS. Anyway, I don’t feel capable of doing a film about AIDS yet. I’m sure I will someday, once I’ve gained more perspective on life and what I’ve observed around me. TIME TO LEAVE is nevertheless marked by the anxiety that my generation has experienced with regard to AIDS. Our sexual awakening came hand in hand with an acute awareness of illness and death.
Romain does not adopt the attitude we might have expected from him. He
is not swept up with a desire to live out his last months in the fast lane…
Right, as opposed to LES NUITS FAUVES (SAVAGE NIGHTS), where the condemned hero explodes with vitality and desire. Personally, I am more moved by Hervé Guibert’s approach to illness and death, in his writing but also in his beautiful film LA PUDEUR OU L’IMPUDEUR (MODESTY AND SHAME). For my film, I had no desire to present a character doing extraordinary things. I wanted to show the concrete reality of the situation: how do you live when you know you are going to die? How do you feel, what choices do you make? For example, just because he’s got a noose around his neck doesn’t mean Romain will make peace with his family. He’s more interested in making peace with himself. Romain is generally detaching himself from others. He is deliberately unpleasant to his boyfriend Sasha, insulting him and provoking a separation in order to help him move on, to symbolically mourn the end of their relationship, even if this means Sasha is likely to suffer guilt later. Romain’s behavior is a double-edged sword. Like Marie in UNDER THE SAND, he’s not a hero, he’s just a human being trying to do the best he can in a terrible situation.
Why this refusal to make the characters heroic?
Maybe to demystify the romantic notion of death as sanctifier. If Romain does attain a certain form of heroism, it happens indirectly, on a very personal level, concerning only his own trace. He is more interested in what he is going to transmit than in making peace with others. Romain is a relatively egocentric, cruel character. He decides not to tell his loved ones about his condition, thus leaving them unprepared, which means his death will cause them that much more suffering. But after all, why shouldn’t Romain have the right to choose how he will die? He makes a conscious decision to embrace his solitude and answer only to himself. He does confide in his grandmother, who is close to death herself and thus someone he can easily relate to. For me, the scene between Romain and his grandmother is the heart of the film.
Facing death is like seeing yourself as a child…
It is often said that when people grow old they become children again. Naturally, I couldn’t help thinking of Bergman’s WILD STRAWBERRIES, however I chose to show simple moments, nothing extraordinary or significant. Just childhood images that come in flashes. I wanted moments, expressions, very few words, an atmosphere, some sensations. Perhaps the childhood images that haunt Romain are helping him accept the child within him, so he can let go, hand it over.
Do you understand Romain’s decision not to do chemotherapy?
It is clear to me that Romain has no chance for survival. In an earlier version of the screenplay, the doctor explains to Romain in no uncertain terms that he is condemned to die and advises him to make the most of his last months. He doesn’t even suggest a treatment. But when I asked a reputed cancer specialist to read the scene, he told me that from an ethical point of view, a doctor has no right to say such a thing. He must always give the patient some hope, even if deep down he knows there is none. I rewrote the scene with this in mind, so it would be credible. But I had no interest in showing Romain doing research on his illness and gradually coming to the conclusion that he has no chance of survival. It’s a hard, cold fact that is set out explicitly at the beginning of the film, and I did not want to spend any more time on it.
Why is Romain a photographer?
At first, Romain’s photography is superficial. He works in fashion, his job is about capturing ephemeral images. But photography takes on a deeper meaning for Romain when he learns he is going to die. Suddenly, it has another dimension. Now his profession seems like it was meant to be, not just a random choice. Like being a cinephile, being a photographer can be somewhat morbid. Making, developing, storing and collecting images are all ways of fighting against time, trying to keep it at bay.
TIME TO LEAVE is a rather minimalist film. Tell us about the editing process.
The editing process was long and difficult. The first version of the screenplay was raw and barebones, but it frightened my producers, and I realized that in order to convince our investors, I’d have to fill out the screenplay. So I developed certain scenes and characters, and then filmed this new version. But looking at the final film today, I can see it actually resembles the original screenplay. In the editing room, our work mainly consisted of editing out all the extra stuff, letting go of any and all scenes that detracted from, or watered down, the power of the character’s journey. Gradually I realized that the more we focused on Romain, the more the film would work and the less we would need those auxiliary scenes. Like in UNDER THE SAND, where I followed the character closely, never losing sight of her. Except that film was made without backing, on a tiny budget. I had to get to the nitty-gritty right away, I had to film “lean” from the outset. I didn’t have those extra scenes to work with.
Do you think this difficult editing process was necessary, or is it a sign of
something dysfunctional about the movie business?
I think it’s just that I have the luxury today of being able to film “fat” and then edit “lean”. I shoot quickly, so I’m taking the risk of acting according to my instinct, moving in several directions at once and not necessarily being aware of all the stakes involved. With UNDER THE SAND, I shot over two separate periods, so I had an opportunity to see that Charlotte Rampling was strong enough to carry the story. With TIME TO LEAVE, we were barreling forward full steam ahead with an uninterrupted shooting schedule. This was the first time I’d ever worked with Melvil Poupaud, and I was apprehensive about taking on a male character, I was afraid he wouldn’t inspire enough audience identification. Filming more scenes served to reassure me, then the real writing of the film took place in the editing room.
You are usually more inclined to film women.
Melodramas about men are extremely rare, and more often than not they are children or old men. The emotions and interiority of melodramas are generally carried by women. For this film, I wanted to try a masculine melodrama, I wanted to see if this young man’s story could solicit tears, which meant I would need to eroticize the actor. It is important for the audience to “fall in love” with Romain, so they can empathize with him and accept his journey. Perhaps this is why I chose Jeanne Lapoirie as director of photography. I wanted a woman’s view of Melvil, with lighting that would emphasize his beauty.
Was Melvil Poupaud an obvious choice for you?
I’ve always liked Melvil’s rather distant presence on screen, especially in Rohmer’s CONTE D’ÉTÉ (A SUMMER’S TALE). He is the only male lead in the 4 SEASONS series, and Rohmer filmed him with the same grace and eroticism as he filmed the young women. I had auditioned Melvil for several of my earlier films, but it was when he invited me to a screening of his video shorts that something really clicked. I was moved by his work, it reminded me of the Super-8 films I made as a teenager. And I loved the fact that he has been filming himself since childhood, he’s got this natural rapport with the camera. I felt this hands-on approach to cinema was something we had in common. And indeed, he rapidly understood and accepted my way of making films. He was involved in the project early on, and has followed all the stages closely, from writing to editing. I find I am increasingly drawn to actors who really invest themselves in their projects. We don’t make films alone, and I need their help, I rely on them to incarnate the characters and help me discover what I want to say, what sensations I want to transmit. I want to work with them, not against them.
What about Jeanne Moreau?
She is the French actress missing from 8 WOMEN, though her presence is felt in Emmanuelle Béart’s maid costume. Jeanne is another actor who is very close to her directors. Like Melvil, she was involved early on, during the preparation stages. She likes to enter the rhythm of a film as it is being created. She is a very generous actor and needs to be enormously involved. I think she has a fascination with directing, and a great deal of respect for it. She really fleshed out her character, she gave her a past. She’d give me her opinions and ideas, she’d tell me about books she loved. Working with her was a wonderful experience. The affection and complicity we had is reflected in the film, in the relationship between Romain and his grandmother.
And Daniel Duval in the role of Romain’s father?
I’ve always loved his powerful presence on screen. I think it’s regrettable he tends to be typecast as a bad guy. I wanted him to play a well-established man, comfortably middle class, intellectual. I had him grow a beard, I wanted to transform him a little. I needed Romain’s rather absent father to be handsome and charismatic, and at the same time deeply marked by life. His face speaks volumes. So does Jeanne Moreau’s. The people in Romain’s life have very few scenes, so they must exist in the limited space of time they are on screen. This is also true for Marie Rivière who, like Melvil, comes from Rohmer’s family of actors.
And the desire to work with Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi again?
We became close on 5X2, and she amicably followed the screenwriting process for TIME TO LEAVE. I had her in mind when I wrote the Jany character, but didn’t tell her. When she read the screenplay, she immediately liked Jany. She was moved by her simplicity, her naivety, her earthiness. Jany reminded Valeria of Shirley MacLaine in SOME CAME RUNNING.
Why did you choose German actor Christian Sengewald to play Romain’s lover Sasha?
Gay couples are still relatively rare on screen and people can be easily put off by them. If the actor is too handsome, they say it’s a cliché. But if he’s ugly, they say it’s not credible… I wanted Romain’s lover to have a strangeness about him, an unusual beauty that echoes Romain’s interest in photography, his taste for people who are different, physically intriguing. I saw Christian in a play in Germany and I liked his presence, the texture of his skin, his childlike, pre-Raphaelite quality. And the fact that he’s a foreigner adds a certain naivety to his character. He has no idea how much Romain is suffering.
How did you choose the music?
I gravitated towards very pure music with religious undertones: Arvo Part, Silvestrov. In the beginning there isn’t much music, just a little, to enhance the childhood moments. But music gradually seeps into the film as Romain reconciles with the world around him. There is something necessarily sacred about Romain’s journey. He’s in a church when he reminisces about his sexual identity. It seemed to me that Romain should confront his feelings about spirituality, the afterlife, all the metaphysical questions that invariably arise in such a situation.
This is the first time you’ve used CinemaScope…
It may seem strange to use CinemaScope for such an intimate subject, but it’s perfect for filming the horizon, horizontal positions, death. It forced me to frame my shots differently, tell the story differently. Often with CinemaScope, you have to shoot either very close, or very wide. Medium shots don’t work too well. And there is very little depth of field. While I was playing around with focus, I discovered I could create dramatic intensity in unexpected ways. Like in the scene in the park with the sister on the phone. It allowed me to get closer than ever to the actors. I could really study their faces, their eyes took on greater importance.
Romain opens himself up to the world in a rather abstract fashion. Not by breaking his solitude and reaching out to any one person, but rather by deciding to become a part of the world around him, like on the beach at the end…
I wanted Romain to be completely anonymous at the end. When he finds himself in the middle of the beach, surrounded by bodies who are full of life and insouciance, there is a visual contrast that I was especially interested in capturing. Lying on the beach myself, I’ve often pondered all the bodies lying around me. “What if somebody here doesn’t get up? What if he isn’t sleeping, or getting a tan, what if he’s dead?” Before I started writing, I had this image in my head of a body all alone at the end of the day, after everyone else has gone home, with the tide rising. Someone who has been forgotten on the beach. I could almost say that this image is what inspired me to make the film. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, I just knew it would suggest a certain acceptance of things. Romain does not create a mise-en-scene around his death, he abandons himself to it.
The beach is a recurring symbol in your films…
Beaches are timeless spaces, they provide abstraction and purity. I’ve evoked these things in my other films, but I wanted to come back to the sunset idea, which some people found ironic
n 5X2. It wasn’t ironic for me, but I understand how people might take it that way. For the sunset scene in TIME TO LEAVE, I didn’t want there to be any ambiguity.
Interview take from TIME TO LEAVE film production notes, courtesy of Artifical Eye.