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No need to tell stories, like that of Charlotte Gainsbourg, the surname of Suzanne Lindon does not lie – her parents are the famous actors Sandrine Kiberlain and Vincent Lindon. Precocious too, the Frenchwoman turned at 19 the very refined Sixteen spring, his first feature film, selected at Cannes. A bit shy, but very articulate, the young woman gave an interview to Soleil about this romantic drama she wrote and directed, a simple story of a teenager who falls in love with an older man. Pandemic forces, we joined him by videoconference in January.
Q The question arises since you play the main role: what part of autobiography?
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R I think that when we write, act or direct, we deliver a part of ourselves. There is something very autobiographical about the way I lived my adolescence and the fact that I was bored by being around young people my age. I was writing about feelings that I was experiencing at the time.
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What’s interesting is to disguise things. Her love story, it didn’t happen to me… or it happened to me differently.
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Q Usually, when you talk about that thankless age, it’s often tragedy or comedy, while your feature film takes on a melancholy tone. How do you explain that?
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R When we make a film about our memories of adolescence, there is always an element of judgment, even if it is not intentional. I didn’t have time to take a step back. I wrote in the state I was and there is a part of melancholy because it is a complicated age to live. We want to discover lots of new emotions when we haven’t really discovered ourselves yet.
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I wanted to put no judgment or mockery on it. I didn’t want it to be heavy, while representing it as best as possible how I experienced it, like a UFO.
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Q By the way, your film is so timeless that it could have been set in the 1980s or 1990s without it being different …
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R That was also important to me. There were no period markers because I wanted all generations, whether mine, the one before or the one after, to be able to recognize and identify with each other. I didn’t want to block the action at a certain time.
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In addition, today, adolescence is often caricatured by cell phones, social networks, computers… I think that the cinema is made so that we can escape from all that. I took advantage of this film to take a break from the times we live in – and to which I sometimes feel like a stranger. I fantasize a little about the encounters we could have before. We met people for what they were and not for the image they give us.
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Q The film includes many artistic references, including To our loves of Pialat, whose main character, who is 16 years old, is called… Suzanne! Was it wanted or there is a part of the unconscious?
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R Both. On the set, I felt so vulnerable and overwhelmed, I didn’t think about it. But there are unconscious things that are created, perhaps images that came back to me… We can prepare as much as possible, we don’t know what will happen. At the end, we recreate life. Since we never do the same thing again, it’s made, but not that much.
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That’s what interested me. See what would come to my mind as I filmed.
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Q You talk about vulnerability, it’s putting yourself in that position by starting your career by placing yourself in front of and behind the camera.
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R Yes, but it was the only way to do it. I wanted to play. The way I felt legitimate to do it was to do it from A to Z. I don’t know if I would have been more anxious to just realize it.
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There, I took full responsibility. If the film failed, it was my fault. If the result is good, so much the better. A bit as if I was going to see what is in my stomach.
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Q We were talking about artistic references, Sixteen spring includes some wonderful choreographed scenes, very strong. What is your relationship to dance?
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R I always have. Besides, my teacher is the choreographer of the film. The movements, the body, it was very important to me. As this is a platonic relationship, I had to find a way to make them love each other concretely. It was a way of creating sensuality, a physical relationship that is not.
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I was nourished a lot by dance performances, some of which were particular, notably those of Pina Bausch, James Thierrée, which gave me the taste to rub shoulders with them.
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Q Was it this need to move that inspired these very wide framed shots or a desire to let the characters breathe?
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R I wanted there to be room for emptiness around the characters, especially mine. As the film deals with boredom, a bit of loneliness, and also not feeling comfortable in a group, it had to be felt by the image.
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Even the tighter shots, because it was shot in scope, this dimension was needed. It is an inhabited void. But everything around the characters had to feel like emptiness.
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Q You were talking about a platonic relationship. Would your film be an anti-Lolita?
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R I didn’t see him like that. But it had to be platonic. Because it is characteristic of adolescence to live love stories without living them completely, to fall in love with a fantasy.
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Q A lot of actors tell their children not to do this job (and they do it anyway). Did your parents try to discourage or encourage you?
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R They didn’t try anything. We mostly talk about life, not that. It came quite late. I was afraid to say I wanted to do this. I don’t know why or what. Afterwards, things were done normally.
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They never wanted to discourage me, this job or any other. When you are parents, you rarely want to discourage your child when he has found something that excites him.
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