THEto the princess of modern times, that of fairy tales, how is it? It steals in the department stores of the brand, bijoux and other package which then resolves in the automotive. In front of the mirror of the bathroom, it stages a real liturgy. And when you contemplate your image reflected in the cell phone adorned with sequins, you ask: “screen, screen of my craving, who is the most beautiful of the realm?”. “Each era produces the heroines he deserves,” he commented on the critic of Le Figaro to the passage of Brut Diamant (“Raw diamond”) in competition at the last Cannes Film Festival.
As rarely happens, the French festival had selected a first work for the main competition, of a young director, not even forty years old, Agathe Riedinger, behind only 4 short films and a couple of demanding statements («I inspire me by Ulrich Seidl, I love his crudeness, his frontal and hard way to put his feet on the plate and show things for what they are”: the Austrian filmmaker of Safari And Rimini It is in fact known for the ruthlessness of his gaze).
Brut Diamantwhich will be seen in May in the cinemaafter a passage to Rendez-Vous of French cinema (Rome, from 2 to 6 April), speaks definitely of our time and without doubt stages a heroine. A young woman (Malou Khebizi, 19 years old, non-actress at the time of filming) who wears the armor every day and prepares for the struggle.
Agathe Riedinger. 40 years. Director and screenwriter, Brut Diamant It’s his first movie. His new project is set in a Cabaret of Trans artists (Photo by Marie Rouge)
The lethal weapon of Liane, this is his name, is his body. The realm where he dreams of landing is a fantasy reality show, but with a programmatic title, Miracle Island. Liane sends a video, is a candidate. One day the phone sounds.
“The subject of Brut Diamant He has lived for me for 8 years »he explains to I woman Agathe Riedinger. “I am a great consumer of reality shows, yet after a long time I still remain incredulous in the face of the violence with which they are made and for the disvalues they propose: class contempt, hyper-sexualization of the woman, hyper-compactivity”.
Malou Khebizi, 20 years old. A candidacy for the César for Brut Diamant and three films released in 2025: Désir filles of pins carEnzo by Robin Campillo, Love me tender. And the series Young Millionnaires.
Highly successful format. Many resist the wear and tear of time, even for decades.
Agathe. In fact, when I struggled to lead the project to the port, I didn’t understand why nobody wanted to talk about it. I was mainly interested in paying tribute to the candidates of the reality shows, warriors who put their body into play and, for women, femininity. There is a strong ambivalence: on the one hand the freedom claimed through a hyper-female body, but at the same time the subjection to the ancient codes of the patriarchate: the woman must be beautiful to have a role in society.
She called her heroine as Liane de Pouty, a famous world champion of the Belle époque who, thanks to her charm, reached the top of the high society.
TO. Through Liane I wanted to show this ambivalence, to show that even today, as in the past, you can decide to use beauty to claim your existence, to find a position in society. And show what are the consequences of this injunction to beauty. Because Liane has a dream, desperately knocks on a door that is convinced will open on a world different from the one in which she lives.
Malou, his Liane lives in Fréjus on the French Riviera, not far from Tres where she grew up. But it is not Riviera, it is periphery. He lives with his smaller mother and sister, many of her needs are not satisfied, certainly none of her desires. Do social media and reality show a ray of light?
Malou. As she also looked at the reality shows especially in the years of the superiors. Many are ashamed to say it, they are not proud of them, but we all looked at them. I found very beautiful candidates, real aesthetic models. Then I suddenly stopped because I realized that in those values I didn’t recognize myself, some broadcasts disgusted me. I remember that in 2017-18 the programs had become very extreme, as if there was a run-up.
A Diamant Film Scene Brut
Aurélie Preston (musical artist, French reality star, editor’s note) for example he was publicly mistreated, someone had urinated on his mattress. And they were broadcasts widespread at 6 in the afternoon, because the boys looked at them when they returned from school. We still see the repercussions today. What is the point of campaign against harassment if we then allow harassment to be present in these broadcasts that in fact encourage them?
The aesthetic ideal changes in history. What was beautiful in the times of the cocotte is not considered beautiful today. But today there is perhaps a masochistic element that recalls ancient practices. Liane is made tattoos at home alone …
TO. Liane has a relationship of adoration towards popular icons such as Kim Kardashian, icons in the religious sense of the term, true objects of worship. It nourishes this mythology in which the notion of “true man” and “real woman” also includes. But what is the essence of a real woman? And not even the adage “you have to suffer to be beautiful” has never been archived.
Despite all the progress of the feminist movement. Liane cares about the suffering that inflicts on herself if it is to be beautiful. It is part of the equation. I wanted to show that every transformation of the body involves pain. Even just walking on heels – a trivial choice, many women use them – it is torture. And heels are the basis of femininity.
Malou Khebiz plays Liane de Pougy on the set of Brut Diamant
The strategies to sculpt, remodel the body today, I find are very fascinating, it is a kind of magic, a fetishism that produces tribal masks. There are other films that are talking about it: The Substance for example.
M. I grew up with an aesthetic ideal that is that of my generation. Social social networks have created universal, world beauty uniformity. Kim Kardashian is the queen of that world and called as we have to be, binarity is imposed by social media, it is the gaze of others that tells us if we are or we are not ok. Then there are the apps that allow you to edit our photos, to smooth our skin … from 12 to 16 I have always seen my face through the filters of my phone, never in the mirror.
They were filters that swollen my lips, until I really started doing it with injections. I showed myself to others always like this, modified. But then comes the moment when you have to introduce yourself to real life and the trouble begins: and find out that you don’t have that nose and those lips you have always shown in the world and with whom you have grown up.
After the film I stopped making injections. I don’t think having turgid lips is badly bad, but it is bad not to have no choice, feeling obliged to do it. It is really not easy to distance himself from what others think of us, from the desire that comes from the gaze of others. Especially if you are 15 years old.
He stopped swelling his lips. Has the film then helped her to take a distance from that world?
M. He made me grow quickly. Agathe has worked on it for years, when he gave me the script practically provided me with an encyclopedia. It was a great professional and personal gift.
A scene from the film Diamant Brut
In 2025 three other films will be released with her protagonist: she went from the condition of raw diamond to that of a professional actress. Has his world changed?
M. Fortunately, it has changed a lot, but not everything. Because many things were fine even before. During the filming for the first time in my life I felt useful, I realized I found my place, that I was able to do something. And doing it, to make my family proud of me.
Agathe, she had seen Reality show by Matteo Garrone, a 2012 film that already dealt with the issue?
TO. I saw it when I was already writing Brut Diamant And I said to myself: “ ShitI’m about to do the same thing ». In reality they are very different films, but one thing unites them: the relationship with religion, ambition to rise from an almost mystical point of view. And also the idea that the isolation combined with devotion to an ideal can make crazy. Because succeeding, at some point, becomes a matter of life or death.
The myth of success usually connects to America, to the idea of ”self made man”, which is done by itself. But perhaps we in Europe have changed.
TO. We are. Certainly when we believe in the promise that television and social networks make us: “You can become someone thanks to this”. The myth of perfection is of this generation. And it is a myth that is clean of all shades. Either you do it or you are a failed. Very cruel. Liane has certainly read the fairy tales and thinks that if it moves well it can become Cinderella. Crede in the myth of the princess who is subtracted from her condition. The princess travels the road alone, without the help of anyone, certainly not of a man. Therefore, I am convinced, a part of her is decidedly feminist.
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