By Antonin Peretjatko
The first surprise that I had when I heard people talking about my movie was that everybody was seeing references to other movies.
Why does my movie provoque so much references to the audience ?
It’s interesting to see that the references vary on the country where the movie is screened : Monthy Python, Woody Allen, Godard, Dino Risi… etc.
I think it is because of the way I made this film.
Colors are very saturated, there are also very few camera movements, it is not a fashion way to make a movie so it may remind of the 70’s or 60’s.
Plenty of movies come to the spectator’s mind. As there is a certain freedom in filming and very few self-censorship with people smoking, drinking and driving without safety belt, it may remind them of a certain period of cinema.
The freedom of filmmaking is also a way to escape from the routine where certain filmmakers or crews are making movies.
In our case, the crew was so small that we didn’t have any difficulty to change our mind during the shooting : if the light was more beautiful on the other side of the street, we would go on the other side. We didn’t have to move trucks to do it.
We found a certain freedom to shoot and we used it. When you don’t have money, you must have ideas and your poverty must become a strength.
For example, our last scene in the fog made a lot of people think about « The Party » by Blake Edward. In fact we arrived on location but the furniture was very ugly so we decided put it aside. We also only had 15 extras, very few for a party.
I remembered Orson Welles’ « Othello » when they waited for costumes that never arrived and then Welles decided to shoot this scene in a hammam with actors almost naked.
I planned to do quite the same thing: « we don’t have furniture, we don’t have extras, so we will use smoke to hide what we don’t have and shoot the scene. »
Fortunately the fog has a meaning in this scene because people are looking for their love. I think life is like that : when you are looking for the man or the girl of your life, you are in the fog you don’t know where to look for… and suddenly you run into someone and it’s him or her ! The smoke there is an allegory of life. It has a poetic and an economic reason!
So the Blake Edward’s reference is quite correct but it’s more accurate to talk about Welles’ inspiration.
Anyway, when a movie is screened, the audience see what they want. As would say mister Selznic : the audience is right !… even if it’s unfair.
On January 19th, « The Rendez-Vous of Déjà Vu » will be shown at the MOMI. I’m very curious of the way this movie will be understood… or not. As you can guess with the title, it’s a very French movie, with a very French sense of humor.
Since the film does not have a US distributor, it is a great pleasure for me to be selected in myFrenchFilmFestival, Unifrance Films’online film festival. So if you can’t make it to the MOMI screening on Jan 19, go check my film and other great French features and shorts on itunes, myfrenchfilmfestival.com or TV5 Monde Cinema on Demand service!
MyFrenchFilmFestival is an initiative of Unifrance Films, an organization whose mission is to promote French cinema abroad.
The 4th edition of MyFrenchFilmFestival will present from January 17th to February 17th a selection of 10 features and 10 shorts on myfrenchfilmfestival.com, iTunes (via Under the Milky Way) and TV5 Monde Cinema on Demand.
To check out the schedule of the theatrical runs, visit http://myfffonscreen.com/
Antonin Peretjatko’s The Rendez-Vous of Déjà Vu selected at MyFrenchFilmFestival will be the closing film of the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look festival in New York on January 19th. For more information: http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2014/01/19/detail/the-rendez-vous-of-dj-vu-la-fille-du-14-juillet
