Una town of the Moselle, French department on the border with Germany: here in the last European elections Jordan Bardella, the candidate of RELEASE National has conquered more than 40 percent of the consents. And here lives The Pierre family (Vincent Lindon), railway worker, father of two males: Fus (Benjamin Voisin) He has a diploma, but does not find work and ends up approaching far -right groups. The family values are others: Pierre witness the drift of the eldest son with pain and bewilderment. Meanwhile The youngest, Louis (Stefan Crepon) continues her studies and prepares to enter the Sorbona. We and themItalian title of Jouer Avec Le Feux“Playing with fire”, al Cinema from February 27this directed by two sisters, Delphine and Muriel Coulin, 53 and 60 years old.
The “game with fire” by Delphine and Muriel Coulin
Several films on Islamic radicalization were made especially after the attacks in Paris in 2015, but the reality of France today is another, we saw it after the outcome of the European elections where the right triumphed.
Delphine In fact, in the months that preceded the decision to do this film we felt very restless from a personal point of view for the political situation in France. When then we read Laurent Petitmanangin’s book (What you need at night, Published in Italy by Mondadori, editor’s note) We said that the approach from within a family was the right one. We look at the country every day, the people around us, turn to the extreme right. We are not very different from that father who sees the eldest son looking for certainties in that world and in those ideas with pain and pain. It is through the gaze of the father that we show what happens, we were interested in this, more than the drift of the son. For us the father in the film is the representative of a democratic country that sees the movement towards the extreme right to take on unpublished proportions, which observes fascism to mount within his family without being able to stem him, and who wonders: where we were wrong, that What could we do differently?
From left, Vincent Lindon, Stefan Creton and Benjamin Voisin.
Muriel The family is the smallest cell of society, looking closely at the family we can better understand the world.
The film tells the story of three men, femininity is absent. Maybe the mother could have made a difference, we don’t know. It is off the pitch and off the pitch it is always interesting. How did you think about this lack?
Delphine. It is the starting point of everything, the absence has created the fracture of the family of the family and everyone tries to cope as he can. The father lives in pain and perhaps has lost sight of the two boys. The youngest dived into the study and will be saved because the studies will bring him elsewhere, he will know the world. But the eldest is lost. His pain, the fact that the school has not helped him and the meeting with new dangerous friends produce the disaster. We have a lot of filmed in the family cuisine, there are three at the table, there is an empty chair, but it is always there, we film it. The viewer feels that void.
Muriel. In all extremism phenomena, starting from the Second World War, with collaborationism, up to religious radicalization, three are the principles that come into play: the family atmosphere, because in many of those cases there is a mourning, or at least one separation; Then there is often a humiliation: it also happens in the film, The eldest son feels humiliated, in society it is not recognized; And finally, a meeting. When these three factors are radicalization finds fertile ground.
Benjamin Voisin and Stefan Creton.
What you describe is not very different from the Islamist drift, it is the same path described by the specialists of religious radicalization. The film is taken from a book, it’s fiction, but you have also done research on the ground. How did it go?
Delphine It is important for us to be as precise as possible, because the viewer must believe, trust, to be able to tie himself to a character. We had never seen an MMA match (Combat that mixes different martial arts, boxing, wrestling, judo, karate, in the film Fus attends those environments, ed)we didn’t even know the rules, there is some rule … I had never even been to a football match. And of course we did not know the far -right groups of which the child suffers the charm. We had to see with our eyes. Of course there are books and documentaries on the subject, but it was not enough for us: unfortunately every time we tried to get closer they recognized us as external elements, but to really infiltrate ourselves it takes a talent that is not ours. And then the problem is that there are almost no women, it was difficult to be undergrown.
Muriel And the fact that there are no women says much of that world. The male chauvinism, vitirism is very strong in those environments. By documenting ourselves a little we discovered that Donald Trump is very close to the world of MMA and that Mark Zuckerberg practices MMA combat regularly. Fascism is toxic male chauvinism when it rises to the rank of philosophy …
Vincent Lindon in us and they.
Your first movie, 17 girls (2011), started from a true story: 17 girls in 2008 in Massachussetts decide to remain pregnant all together.
Delphine My passion is fiction, of course with concrete characters, who are part of today’s world. But because the world of fiction exists, taking body, the small details must be right.
Muriel When we film, I also need reality. I love to film the body, I always look for the truth, even in the staging. Reality is not the truth, indeed it is less and less.
Vincent Lindon won the Volpi Cup at the last Venice exhibition for your film. Perhaps the recognition should also have understood the two boys, Benjamin Voisin and Stefan Creon.
Muriel Vincent is famous, many will go to see the film because he is there, and because he has been rewarded, but it is important to discover new talents. Even if we are convinced of the talent of Vincent, in Venice he played it with Daniel Craig, Adrien Brody, Joaquin Phoenix, the largest actors in the world: it was Europe against Hollywood. Vincent did not sleep for 48 hours after the ceremony. And he embraced anyone on his journey. And then we also won the golden lion, a very important recognition for us because it was a jury of young people who judged us. The speech that the jurors made was moving, went straight to the heart and moves me a lot to see that in Italy, with the political situation you have, there are young generations so interested in culture. It is a sign of hope.
The directors of the Delphine Coulin (on the right) and Murielle Coulin (left) on the red carpet of the film ‘Jouer Avec Le Feu’ (Noi and Loro), presented in competition during the 81st Venice International Film Festival at the Lido di Venice , on September 4, 2024. (Photo by Alberto Pizzoli / AFP) (photo by Alberto Pizzoli / AFP via Getty Images)
There are many brothers of cinema, from Taviani to Coen, from Farrelly to Safdie, of course the Dardenne, up to the very young twins Boukherma di Leurs Enfants Apès Eux. Less the sisters. We always wonder in the face of the magic of a shared vision if you never fight when you direct a scene and how you divide your job.
Muriel It is true, there is the mystery of a homogeneous vision. Which is not a mystery, because we have the same parents and grandparents themselves, all with a great passion for literature and cinema, we have common references, we have the right similar ones. It was the grandfather he gave us the first camera …
Does it give you strength to know that there is another next to it?
Delphine Gives confidence. A thousand issues at the same time, there are no answers for everything, but you have to pretend to have them. Sometimes we adopt the strategy of the good policeman and the bad police and works like this. Then we also do things separately, I write novels. But not the cinema, we always do that together. We discuss like all the sisters, we fight less than the Gallagher brothers, perhaps more than the lumière. But we discuss as sisters, not as directors: cinema is sacred.
We and them. The scenes in court
What fed to you when you formed your cinephilia?
Muriel I have a classic training, I made a cinema school, then I worked with Kieslowski and Kaurismaki, I love classic cinema.
Delphine Instead, I have a taste of the ultra-contemporary, dance, art, music, theater … I worked artfully where I produced films and programs. We have a strategy that reconciles these two visions: we work with two camera machines, one is in the hands of the director of photography, which films the whole of the scene following the directions that we decided before. The second allows us to follow the details, look for the most bizarre things. Classic and modern …
The whole second part of the film is shot in court. In France we have seen many process films lately. There is a liturgy codified in that context: how did you face it?
Delphine We immediately chose the place, it had to have precise characteristics. We wanted an elevator who wore his son, as if he came straight from hell and we wanted the accused box under glass, to be able to play on similarities and differences. The father would like the son to look like him, but he no longer recognizes him and the reflections have helped us to multiply the image. Allowing us not to always do only the field counterfield. But to have them both at the same time.
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