French actress turned director Nicole Garcia’s latest behind the camera sees her adapt a period-set Sardinian novel literally translated as ‘Kidney Stones’, to 1950s France as From the Land of the Moon starring Marion Cotillard, Louis Garrel and Alex Brendemuhl.
In the film, Gabrielle (Cotillard), a woman in a loveless marriage falls for another a wounded soldier (Garrel) whilst at a health resort, away from her restrictive family.
Could you start by telling us the novel, and how you came across it?
I was taking a plane from Orléans to Marseille when I picked it up in the shop. By the time I read the book, I rang my producer to say, “Are the rights available?”
What was it about this novel?
What I loved was a woman vibrating in this book. I think it was the character I was waiting for, someone that I couldn’t invent myself because normally I do original screenplays. So what I found very interesting in this character was that you have this wild, sexual side to her. Gabrielle’s very lively, rebellious and somebody who is almost tangled in mysticism. She’s almost intoxicated by this image she has of love. She even talks to God at one point, asking for love or to “let me die.”
It’s a Sardinian novel, so I had to take it out of that insular setting and situate it in 1950s France as a metaphor for the country at the time. It becomes embodied by this woman, told by her as well. Her lover is coming back from Indochina, an officer in the Colonial War, which is an important moment in French history. She’s married to a Spanish immigrant, and these were the people in the post-war period responsible for reconstructing France. It was this sort of mingling that gave France its cultural landscape, but still relevant today. So you’ve got this very passionate woman who is living in restrictive French society. She’s at a crossroads, but she foredhadows the liberation of women in the 1960s. You get the impression she’s someone who is submissive to the law of her mother. But it’s not real submission, and the title of the film in French, which translates to “stone sickness” is the literal translation and very significant in that it’s her own body expressing this factor. The title of the original book by Milena Agus is Mal de Pierres, kidney stones. This is spurred on when she’s under pressure and strain. It’s as if it’s her own body that’s expressing the discomfort, the moral discomfort that she’s undergoing, expressed physically.
Was it important to you to do it in France?
I didn’t want to do an Italian movie with Italian actors. I wanted the equivalent story, told my way, in France. She’s crazy, and scandalous. It is Romanesque because it turns to the psychiatric side. There is a certain madness, but what it does is make her creative. She can use her imagination which saves her. So it’s very artistic and that’s what is personal to me in the film. You can compare Gabrielle to lots of literary figures. People have said she is like Adele H, Madame Bovary. She’s very much like Scarlett O’Hara because she can’t live in reality and so has to escape to a different world through her imagination. Scarlett dreams of a different world, but unlike Gabrielle she loses the man in the end because the real madness is him. He has to put up with this woman loving somebody other than him, he is not the subject of this love.
Are there parallels between the immigrant experience in France back then and now?
There was a massive influx of Spanish immigrants following the Spanish Civil war with France. They did physically reconstruct the buildings after the war in the way France wanted. France called on northern Africa for mass immigration. Of course, now France is not in the exact same situation as it was in the post-war period. Economically speaking you cannot just “bring in” all these masses of immigrants, unfortunately. Gabrielle’s husband built his own house, their home. It’s not considered economic to bring in immigrants anymore, which is a big problem for Europe.
How important is it for there to be women directors? Do you miss something as a woman in the film business?
I’m very lucky because I’ve been selected three times to go to the Cannes Film Festival. My early friend was Jane Campion. I’m not in the skin of a man, so that’s difficult. As soon as I wanted to be a director, I was helped by my notoriety as an actress, which I would not normally advise. Soon one film led to another. Most films by women are very light, but you have those films that can spring up and slap you in the face. We all go through struggles, just like my character.
From the Land of the Moon is playing at 2017 Alliance Francais French Film Festival, which is travelling through Australia between March 7 and April 9.
Read our interview with Marion Cotillard.