"With the minotaur mask on, I didn't hear or see anything."
A horror movie "not for everyone" "Werewolf" (in the original - "Animal") tells about a rural cowgirl who turns into a murderous bull at night and remembers nothing during the day. This slow, dragging story unfolds in the south of France, in Camargue, and magical realism here so imperceptibly passes into the realm of total terror that not every nerve will be able to withstand it. And "Werewolf" is also a female perspective on the world, on bulls, on men and on cinema. Izvestia talked to director Emma Benestan and lead actress Ulaya Amamra about it.
"It is at once a western, sci-fi and horror"
- What an unexpected movie you've got! Do you think it would be right to call it a body horror?
Emma Benestan: I would rather say that we have a mix of genres. It's western, sci-fi, and horror all at once.
Directed by Emma Benestan
- Not the most obvious combination. How did it come about?
E.B.: My childhood was spent in the south of France, in the Camargue region. That's why I am very close to all the local myths, legends, stories connected with bulls. So the story about the minotaur in reverse, a monster, which is not a monster at all, but a woman! And the members of my crew understood my story, because they too had grown up side by side with bulls.
- And with bullfighting?
E.B.: No, no, do not confuse! Bullfighting is when bulls are killed. In Camargue it's different, they don't kill anyone, it's a bull race. Yeah, well, when I was a kid, I loved vampire movies. And now I've decided to combine bulls and vampires into one story. And set it against the absolutely magical backdrop of the Camargue.
- This is your third movie together. What makes your union so strong? And you must have written the script especially for Ulaya, right?
E.B.: You're quite right, especially for her. Why? Because it's like a family. We grew up together, we've been friends for a hundred years, we see the world the same way. We see the challenges of acting and directing the same way. Well, I mean, I think that the actor should not only play the role, his direct duty is to create the character together with you. It's very important to have someone like Ulaya by your side. She's incredibly creative, incredibly empathic, she knows me very well. And she knows that I know her very well. She and I, when I was writing the script, we argued a lot and thought together and just chatted about bulls, about men, about the script. And we always had doubts.
Actress Ulaya Amamra
I like to question the script with my actors. Because I want to be constantly surprised, searching, that's the only way you can expect the movie to be really alive. You need not just partners, but accomplices, accomplices! Especially here it was necessary, because the shooting was difficult. Almost all the actors were unprofessional, and Ulaya was so noble, both as a person and as an actress, to trust them, you know? Because it was necessary. Yes, she was my most important ally - and the main strength of this movie.
"We didn't think of any similar Bull Girl movie"
- Ulaya, what was it like? Emma called you in the middle of the night and said, I have an idea! I've come up with a movie where you turn into a bull! Is that how it all happened?
Ulaya Amamra: Well, roughly, yes. And my first reaction was: yeah why not? I'm used to following Emma, I trust her. She, how should I put it, allowed Nejma, that's the heroine's name, to exist! To emerge and live! Let me explain. A heroine like Nejma could not exist in a social movie, in a western or science fiction. Not in any genre. In French cinema for sure, we have our own rules. She can only live between genres, outside of them. We did it.
A still from the movie
- So the heroine is a minotaur. And that probably means a lot of hours of makeup, right?
W.A.: A lot. Somewhere between six and eight hours at a time. And it took three days to shoot that transformation. It was basically a huge mask. Once I put it on, I was completely disconnected from reality. And strangely enough, from my own body. It felt very different. The whole team from that moment lived as if there was a real monster on the court, a monster. With the "minotaur" mask on, I couldn't hear or see anything. It was weird.
- How did you come up with this image in general in terms of appearance ?
E.B.: We had to invent it. We did not remember any similar movie, about a girl-bull. It seems to me that there was never such a movie. I mean, there was one Portuguese short film, but it was still something different. One of the main references for me was the movie It Comes for You, a masterpiece of horror. There, too, a girl feels a strange change inside her, and everything changes around her. All this is reflected in Nejma, who feels as if she is being chased by a bull. And there's a roll call there in the length of the shot, in the way the filming is done.
A still from the movie
- What about the "choreography" of the bull? How was it created?
E.B.: It was difficult. We worked with wild animals. You want to get some result from them, but it doesn't mean that you will get it. We had our own trainer, but he had never worked with wild animals! And we were struggling to get this result, so that we could have a full moon in the frame, you know! And so we spent hours watching the bull, its behavior, and then we tried with Ulaya to shoot the same thing from the point of view of this bull. As if to see it through his eyes.
U.A.: I ended up having a special inner connection with this bull. He was my partner in the movie, no exaggeration. You couldn't control everything, you just had to trust each other.
- How did you sell the idea to get financing? A minotaur girl in the south of France?
E.B.: I got great producers, magical girls! They believed in this project right away. I had made two documentaries about the Camargue before, but in general this region is not much represented in movies. Meanwhile, it is a magnificent region with a unique landscape, very cinematic. They became interested. They gave us €3.5 million, but we needed €6 million. But we started shooting and within six months we had quickly raised the remaining budget to finish the film.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
