Just Philippot, director of A Devoted Friend: “I had Sans Toit ni loi and Joker as references”

Meeting with the filmmaker, who is tackling the series for the first time and directing Laure Calamy in this thriller about the mythomaniac of the Bataclan.

Inspired by the investigation book The mythomaniac of the Bataclan by Alexandre Kauffmann, the mini-series A devoted friend puts Laure Calamy in the shoes of Chris, a pathological liar who invents a friend who was seriously injured during the attacks of November 13 in order to join a victims' association. A dizzying psychological thriller where Just Philippot, director of The Cloud And Acidimposes its paw on a playing field where it was not expected. Met during the La Rochelle Fiction Festival, the filmmaker tells us behind the scenes of this extraordinary story.

First: After The Cloud And Acidwe didn't expect you to be a psychological thriller, especially based on a true story…
Just Philippot : What is very paradoxical is that I didn't change register, I just returned to the starting point. The Cloud And Acidit's an enchanted parenthesis, bargains, alignments of planets that I hadn't necessarily anticipated. I often talk about it because it defines my cinema and who I am, but I grew up with a brother with multiple disabilities in a large family. We had long hair, impossible first names, we were redheads… We were constantly on the fringes of something. And when we arrived on a beach, it was immediately a kind of spectacle for the people. I always found these constant looks at me and my brother very invasive. Which means that I grew up with this desire to “defend” someone who did not have the means to speak to say that he had the right to live, and to express that he loved us and that we loved him.

So I believe that all my stories are actually linked to the love of others, to the way in which we can prove it and show it. A devoted friend allowed me to return to this need to focus solely on characters, without other artifice. And to create ambivalences thanks to them. Today, I'm looking for a cinema that isn't afraid to ask questions and wonder if we have all the answers. I love discomfort, disturbing the viewer.

For what purpose?
Being uncomfortable doesn't mean being embarrassed. It corresponds above all to a dialogue with what we are looking at. And if a dialogue has been initiated, then we emerge strengthened. This mini-series offered me the opportunity to experience a story that offers strong, uncomfortable emotions, but which also speaks of love. I need to make the other exist, that's how we made the series and that's how I work.

A devoted friend is not a faithful adaptation of Alexandre Kauffmann's book. Was that the key to your freedom, not having to constantly conform to reality?
We read the book and then completely forgot about it. We had no problem changing the story. As long as there was an exploration of the character and his pain, that was the main thing for me. In the first scene, we see Chris going on a date and the guy leaves after five minutes. It's the cruelty of the 21st century: she prepared for who knows how long, she took the RER to come to Paris… And she offered two hours of her life to a redneck, who only gives her five minutes. But he moves on, even though she is incapable of doing so. What she was looking for was just to enjoy a moment with someone, to connect with each other. This look at her guided the entire series. And I knew precisely where his wounds were to return to this solitude.

The series is populated with staging ideas – sometimes discreet, sometimes less so – to tell the story of Chris's mythomania and ambivalence. Did you need to find forms that avoid systematically going through dialogue?
Exactly. And I no longer hesitate to raise the sliders. In my career, I have used staging sliders with effects and very advanced tools, and today it allows me with my cinematographer to try things, to appreciate sensorially an image processing, to understand what music can bring… It took me several films and meetings to understand that music was a medium of pleasure. Before, I found that she stole emotions. I was wrong. So thanks to The Cloud And AcidI have tools at my disposal to try to make the staging as explosive as possible. We tried things on A devoted friendparticularly around what we call tilt and shift, that is, distorting the way the optics are positioned on the camera, in order to create a blurry and sharp effect. Which was in some places a good pointer to fall into the fracture that is emerging in the character.

The suspense rests on these moments when the lie escapes Chris, when she contradicts herself or when events push her to improvise. How did you model this vertigo?
There is a director whose work I greatly respect, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. I remember a unitary that he had shot, The Disappearancewhere Thierry Godard plays a chef accused of having killed his wife. The character is neither crying nor in a trance, and everyone tends to imagine him as the murderer. Alix Poisson recounted the filming and said that before shooting certain scenes, Lestrade had fun giving instructions: “ There, we will believe what he says. At least the characters will believe it. We're going to say it's the truth. » Then, in the next scene: “ Let's imagine that it's a lie, and that we know full well that it is one. » I loved this way of constantly being in opposition to lies and truth. We like liars because we live in a society of permanent denial. And there is a pleasant side as a spectator to being in a double position.

To the point that we no longer know if Chris ends up believing what she says, particularly about her past.
Absolutely, and these are moments when you understand things. I imagine you're thinking of the sequence where she talks about meeting Iggy Pop? Laure had a blast doing it and her goal was as much to captivate the attention of the group as to captivate us, the spectators. To put everyone in his pocket. His performance was great, but Mathieu Descamps, my sound engineer, told me: “ Ask Laure to make one very neutral, very below. Maybe when editing, you'll need it. » I can't talk about the rest, but this story must have had a double importance, and therefore be treated a tad differently. But it shouldn't be felt, just perceived. It's a complicated in-between to find, because sometimes you are lured by the desire to do a lot, simply because the scenario allows it.

How do you direct an actress as intuitive as Laure Calamy?
Honestly, it's not complicated. The first take is deadly, the second too… Sometimes you tell yourself that you have to look like you're doing your job a little, so you ask for a third! (Laughter.) Even if there were still certain moments where I brought her back into the stakes, in a very specific place. But with Laure, it’s a meeting above all. Me, I always work on references. When I have two in mind that are very opposite, it generally means that I have found my field of reflection. The Cloudit was Little Peasant And The Fly. Acidit was Requiem for a massacre and a film by Stéphane Brizé. Spontaneously, for A devoted friendI had in mind Without roof or law by Agnès Varda and Joker by Todd Phillips. So I met Laure, who immediately said to me: “ I would like to do something that will seem a little weird to you, but it would be a mix between… »

And there, she cites the two films to me, without anyone having spoken to her about them before! From the outset, we knew what we wanted to do with the character, we had common tastes. And when she talks about Sandrine Bonnaire in Without roof or lawshe talks about her approach, her hair which is not washed… All these things which will allow an actress to compose to create an extraordinary character but which exudes reality.

A Devoted Friend, mini-series in four episodes to watch on the Max platform.

A Devoted Friend: the disturbing series on the Bataclan mythomaniac [critique]