Page 12 - Fujifilm Exposure_15 Melinda Messenger_ok

“I think that I’ve
shot most of my films
on Fuji... I find
something incredibly
sensual about it,
in terms of its colours
and subtleties.”
OLIVIER ASSAYAS, Director
O n screen, the drama covers many decades, and follows the fortunes of its charac- ters through momentous events in 20th Century his- tory, as well as profound changes in their profession-
al and personal lives.
Les Destinées Sentimentales is an
epic film from Frenchman Olivier Assayas, and a bold challenge for a director who admits this movie cost more than all his others - films that include Irma Vep and Late August, Early September - put together.
The drama was pretty intense off screen too, as Assayas and his third- time collaborator, cinematographer Eric Gautier (who also lit the recently released Those Who Love Me Can
Take The Train), worked together to create a beau- tiful visual palette that would do justice to the unfolding story.
“I think that I’ve shot most of my films on Fuji,” explains Assayas in near perfect English. “I find something incredibly sensual about it, in terms of its colours and sub- tleties. In Les Destinées Sentimentales we had
many scenes in the countryside, across many different seasons that it was important to get just right.
“And I think Eric did that, in terms of the softness of the greens and the texture of it. It was close to that impressionist painting look we were after. I know Eric worked hard to develop his own ‘shadow’ screenplay that would relate to the light, the colour and the passing of the seasons in the film. For the scenes in the facto- ry, we were always asking ourselves
whether it was summer or winter. It was an enormous undertaking and Eric built this amazing sort of gantry to light it. So it was extremely challenging in terms of the photography, certainly the most complex film I’ve ever made,” Assayas adds.
The story is based on a semi-auto- biographical novel by Jacques Chardonne, and follows the fortunes of a country parson (Charles Berlinger), lured away from the priesthood and back into the family porcelain busi- ness in Limoges. He marries the beau- tiful Pauline (Emmanuelle Beart), and over the years the couple come close and drift apart as they are separated by events like the Great War, and the increasing pressures of an increasingly outmoded and old fashioned industry. Their greatest happiness is during a Swiss idyll that Assayas recalls was less than idyllic to shoot.
“The scenes in Switzerland were hard, partly because that location had so many windows that it was like shooting outdoors. We were so dependant on the weather through the whole film, and there we had to adapt to it each day, stopping and starting scenes.
“It was tough, both for us and the actors. But it was really important, because you have to feel the strength of the summer in Switzerland, and elsewhere you have the feel of the autumn mist and the freezing snow.
It was really an essential part of the story-telling.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
Les Destinées Sentimentales, to be released in the UK on December 8, was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
CREATING A THREE-HO
Les Destinées Sentimentales, the latest film from Frenchman Olivier Assayas
EXPOSURE • 10 & 11
U