‘For me, a film about euthanasia must be full of life’

“I got so depressed with the streaming platforms during the lockdown. All those series… All those bad movies on those platforms too…’

François Ozon lets out a deep, theatrical sigh, and then another. ‘I am so happy that the cinemas are opening again. For me, film is connected to the big screen. And at the moment we have to fight to be able to show our films there.’

The 54-year-old French filmmaker is sitting among some journalists on a roof terrace in Cannes. It’s summer 2021, the day after the festival premiere of Tout s’est bien passé, Ozon’s film adaptation of Emmanuèle Bernheim’s autobiographical novel. It was about the euthanasia of her father, an illegal act in France. Bernheim, who died of cancer in 2017, was a screenwriter as well as a successful novelist. She co-wrote some of Ozone’s best-known films, such as Sous le sable and Swimming Pool.

‘Emmanuèle was also a good friend of mine’, says Ozon. ‘When her book was published in 2013, she suggested that I make the story into a film, but I didn’t think I was capable of that at the time. It was too… personal: I didn’t see my place in her story. After her death, I reread the book. Then I thought: maybe I’m ready now.’

A journalist asks whether Ozon itself is afraid of deterioration and old age. ‘Of course I am!’, the director responds. And in an ironically punishing tone: ‘Don’t you? I must write my will as soon as I get back from Cannes. I don’t want to suffer. Hmm, on the other hand, maybe I’m interested in that suffering, right up to the last moment. What I often heard, when I talked to people in Belgium about it, where euthanasia is legal in certain situations, is that the possibility of euthanasia gives peace of mind. Knowing that there is a way out makes people feel better.’

In the final film, Ozon’s hand is easily recognizable: the mocking, darkly comical accents in the non-sentimental drama about old age, decline and (timely) termination of life. ‘I do think it’s important to be on the side of life when I tackle this subject’, the filmmaker acknowledges cheerfully. “I didn’t want to make a morbid movie, not something along the lines of what Haneke did (in his unrelenting drama Amour, red.). For me, a film about euthanasia has to be full of life and action, without crybabies too. The freedom that the father in Tout s’est bien passé allows itself, I like it. He is clear and honest, in no way afraid to look death straight in the face. Although there is something perverse in the way he instructs his daughter to help him with that.’

85-year-old André (actor André Dussollier) decides after a stroke that it has been beautiful. The art collector has led what you would call a full life: family, wife, children, in addition to his openly gay loves. Not the easiest father anyway, because somewhat brusque and egomaniac, he saddles his eldest daughter with a final assignment: organize my euthanasia. That daughter, Emmanuèle (Sophie Marceau), has a sister who is less enthusiastic about Dad’s self-imposed ending, plus an absent and mentally unstable brother, who also finds himself wriggling in the final part of their father’s life.

Ozon: ‘The paradox of someone like André is that he wants to die, precisely because he loves life so much. If that life no longer goes the way it used to, it is no longer necessary for him. In France, assisted euthanasia is a dangerous thing, it is out of the law. I never thought about that before, but now I wonder: would I take that risk? Would I help someone? I do not know. You may have to face that choice first to know that. I do believe that in Western society we have a harder time relating to death: we are afraid of it, we prefer not to talk about it. And we are obsessed with health.’

Ozone is a film maker: while it slowed down a bit because of the lockdowns Tout s’est bien passé finally goes out in Dutch cinemas, he is already presenting his new film in Berlin, Peter von Kant. That satire is a variation on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s seventies classic The bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, but now with a man in the lead role. He doesn’t want to reveal anything yet, says the director, who is known for the ease with which he alternates between the various film genres: comedy, (melo)drama, satire, historical drama. ‘I’m a cinephile, and I like all kinds of films. There is always the idea for a story first, then I determine the genre. And in doing so, I follow my instinct: there are no laws, there is no career plan.’

Of Tout s’est bien passé Ozon also pokes fun at the class difference that arises in the French euthanasia debate. ‘I wonder how poor people do this’, father André remarks, when the rising costs of his planned termination of life in Switzerland are discussed. ‘They have to wait until they die’, his daughter sneezes.

‘I don’t know whether my film can contribute to the debate about euthanasia’, says Ozon. ‘We will see. I hope people after seeing Tout s’est bien passé understand how difficult it is for the loved ones of someone with a wish for euthanasia. You should be able to turn to the doctors and the state in such a situation, not to your loved ones. But the public can form its own opinion. My work as an artist is to raise questions. Once you start giving answers, it becomes bad art, I think.’