«Kâbus, les fantômes de l'espoir» - Meeting with Alice Fargier

Le Regard Libre N° 38 - Loris S. Musumeci

FIFF 2018« special report»

Alice Fargier is a Franco-Swiss filmmaker. She has worked in the theater, then as a film director, assisting prestigious Asian directors such as Hong Sang Soo and Tsai Ming Liang, before moving on to the art of sound creation for France Culture radio. She now devotes her time to making short films. Meet this lover of sounds and images.

Loris S. Musumeci: Why « Kâbus » ?

Alice Fargier: It means «nightmare» in Turkish.

How did your short film come about? Kâbus or this nightmare?

I was on an artist residency in Istanbul, invited as a writer and screenwriter. So I was supposed to be working on a writing project. Istanbul is a city steeped in history, and the place where I was staying, the Sainte-Pulchérie High School, had its own little story, too. When I was welcomed at the dinner reception, the school’s principal told me in all seriousness that the school was haunted: a ghost was lurking there. He was genuinely terrified of it.

Do you really believe that ghost story?

Normally, I don't believe in ghosts. But the principal himself was so pale and trembling that I started to get scared. On top of that, I was sleeping alone in a huge building, up in the attic. As you can imagine, the situation was perfect for letting my imagination run wild and for keeping me awake at night.

Have you, in turn, heard that ghost?

In any case, I was hearing strange noises. That led me to imagine the story of a dancer who would fall out of bed in a fit of sleepwalking to join the spirit present in the building and dance with it. So that was my first idea for a film.

However, there is only one character in your short film, and it is a man.

While I was looking for a female dancer, I met Erdem Gündüz at a cultural event organized by my artist residency. By a happy coincidence, this great Turkish dancer struck me as the perfect person for my film. All the more so because he is a major figure in his country. He had performed the «standing man» piece during the 2013 protest movement to prevent the destruction of Gezi Park in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. So many young people had risen up that the event took on a scale as significant as that of May ’68 in France. His presence gave my film project a more political direction than I had originally anticipated.

This dancer's appearance is therefore not neutral.

No, but what also interested me was the nominative form of ’standing man« that he had retained. My project was to depict a standing man who is nevertheless lying down. As paradoxical as it may seem, I decided to depict the standing man lying down, without implying that the standing man has given up. He tries several times to get back up.

All things considered, your ghost story is pretty insignificant to the movie.

Absolutely not. I want to ask a very specific question about Kâbus : How can you sleep when you hear the ghosts of war? We all have the ghosts of our own wars.

What are your ghosts?

I am of Jewish descent, and my ancestors perished in the concentration camps. My  The ghosts are from World War II. In fact, I'm currently working on another film about my grandmother's ghost, who used to scare me when I was little.

Does the ghost of Sainte-Pulchérie High School allow you to talk about ghosts in a certain way?

My overarching theme is primarily about war and the psychological scars it leaves behind.

Could you have, or would you have, done Kâbus A feature film?

I’ve always imagined this film as a short film, first of all because it’s a nightmare. And the short-film format seems better suited to expressing a dream. Furthermore, I conceived Kâbus like a piece of music that corresponds to a certain length of time. An eight-minute short film therefore seems appropriate to me.

Personally, when I watched your film, I got the impression that it was a choreographed piece in and of itself.

It’s true that the staging is choreographic. However, I didn’t intend to present a recording of a choreographed piece.

In your technical work, did you intend to play with the contrast between camera stability and camera movement?

There’s no doubt that the camera is one with the film’s protagonist. Nevertheless, I wanted shots at eye level so that the image would convey the character’s emotions through its composition.

The sounds reach the ear in a rather jumbled way: we hear a muezzin, the noise of the city, but also the thudding sounds against the floor as the character drags himself down the stairs. Taken as a whole, does this sound design create a kind of music?

I believe so, yes. Sound design is like a musical composition; it’s conceived, to say the least, as a score with crescendo and mitigations.

To end in silence.

Near silence. In reality, there are still a few faint voices in the background for the finale. These are the voices of hope. Like little splashes of color.

Why did you want to end your short film with a message of hope?

Even when I'm tempted to write a story that ends tragically, I always end up changing the ending.

Out of necessity?

Yes, I need it, and I think that's a pretty common sentiment.

Write to the author : loris.musumeci@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Loris S. Musumeci for Le Regard Libre