Etangs Noirs [named after a metro station in Brussels] is the first feature film by the Belgian directors Pieter Dumoulin and Timeau De Keyser. The film takes the form of Jimi’s search for an unknown neighbour, Sayenna (Makvala Pirtskhalava-Sakhelashvili), whose package has been delivered to him by mistake. When Jimi (Cédric Luvuezo) fails to find the woman, he talks to her neighbours. Eventually Sayenna’s work address leads Jimi to the chaotic metro and that only makes his search more difficult. Through Jimi the film looks at the world he finds himself caught up in: first the Cité Modèle housing complex in Laken, Brussels and later the city’s noisy metro.
Etangs Noirs was filmed in the Cité Modèle in Brussels with actors from the district who worked on the film with enormous enthusiasm and magnanimity. The small team, whose budget was limited, ensured that the filmmakers could work flexibly without disrupting daily life in the district and the metro. The real travellers in the metro became extras and apartments in the Cité Modèle became the sets. It was faith in these unexpected circumstances that places this fiction film firmly in reality. The result is a film that displays the same unexpected generosity and penetration as Jimi’s search: Il est à vous - It’s up to you.
How did Etangs Noirs come to be filmed in the Cité Modèle? Why your interest in that district?
We went to the Cité Modèle in Laken for the first time five years ago, drawn mainly by an interest in the architecture. On the one hand, the district is transparently constructed with a clear plan view and, on the other hand, it is disoriented by the sameness of the residential tower blocks. We thought it would be interesting to work formally with elements like the mirrored apartments, the distance between the towers, the different depths, both horizontal and vertical. The long passageways, open squares and stairwells are the ideal set for the physical movement of characters. Before an idea for a character or plot came up, we were interested in the effect the place could have on the characters’ bodies, as if the architect who designed the district, Renaat Braem, was a set designer.
So it was the place that inspired the story, the film script?
Taking the disorienting effect of the sameness of the tower blocks as our starting point, we came up with a very simple premise: a package is delivered to the wrong address. The apartment and the floor are right, but not the tower block. The package is addressed to the person living in the same apartment in the tower block opposite. We wanted to create a little parable about a moral code: a character who is determined to deliver a package to the addressee. This story is literally the whole film. The film opens with the package in the Jimi’s hands. We see him go in search of the addressee, walk around, break in, lose the package, fight for it and win it back. When the search ends and the hands release the package, the film can only end as abruptly as it began. The concept of the film as a ‘detective’ story, with the package as the MacGuffin, gave us a narrative form that enabled us to work with both the architecture and with the people living in the Cité Modèle.
You talk about a ‘journey’, about ‘a trail’ and link all this to the architecture of the district. Why this emphasis on the physical?
We wanted to avoid making a milieu sketch of the district. When we wrote the film script, we didn’t want to depict the Cité Modèle as a ‘milieu’, but as a place that directly impacts on the movements and bodies of the actors. The Dutch filmmaker Johan Van der Keuken talked about how a physical trail can reveal an inner world in film: if you look at it like that then the physical exertion changes, the physical work, the movement of the body and its movement from place to place, the wear and tear on the body in the theme of courage. Yes, I see in it a heroic theme. That heroism is expressed in Jimi’s indomitability and the actor’s physical performance. Only when he moves around in the world, collides with it, do we gain insight into Jimi’s character.
The actors are all from the Cité Modèle district. Why that decision?
Initially we didn’t set out to work with people living there. The Cité Modèle is often used as a location for ‘cop movies’ and thrillers, in which case the district has to represent, for example, a Parisian suburb and so is chosen mainly for its ‘spectacle value’. As a result, we sensed that the residents’ relationship with cameras was not a particularly pleasant one. We were torn between our plan to make fiction and the reality of that place which we couldn’t get away from. So it was more a question of whether we might make a film there with them rather than whether they might be in our film. Hence the decision to work with the locals and to let the Cité Modèle influence our fictitious story. We were given a room in the community centre to work in and printed invitations for auditions. That’s how we found our actors.
How does this translate into the development of the characters?
We had only sketched the characters in broad outline in advance and only in accordance with the narrative. This neighbour will help, this neighbour wants to help but can’t, this is the shop assistant, and so on. During the audition period, we rewrote some roles or we came up with a new character because we really wanted a particular actor. So it was the personality of the actor that defined the role. We didn’t want to work with a preconceived idea in this area either, but to allow the people we were working with to surprise and inspire us. We gave each of the actors the opportunity to shape a character in their own way. Some did this more exuberantly than others. Some were more restrained in their performance, others more expressive. The way the actors embody their character is what makes them individuals. We like to look at actors who are explicitly acting. For example, we love the exuberant style of actors in films by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Glauber Rocha. You see an actor set to work with a dialogue, with a character.
We looked for an enigmatic actor for the role of Jimi. But the way Cédric Luvuezo interpreted that character surprised us. He acts nobly, graciously. We only got to know the character when Cédric played him. We wanted to free that character from a determining milieu, but also from a determining psychology. That’s why we don’t give a back story. That way there is no past that determines, no future to hanker after. There is only the here and now of the scene.
The other location where you worked was the Brussels metro. Why did you choose that location?
We tried to make this familiar place with all its colours, sounds and movement, unique: Jimi looks and listens intensely to the world around him. The everyday becomes mysterious in the light of his search. We focus our attention on the materiality (sound, space, colours) of these places through the narrative. We were also interested in the tension between the uncontrolled reality of the place and the fiction of our film script. That tension is present in the acting. The actors move around between the ‘real travellers’. Often the travellers notice the actors, or the actors and camera have to anticipate unexpected interaction with the world around them. That way of working was fanciful but thrilling.
What was the relationship between shots and the process by which they were combined? Did you make major changes to the content?
We had laid down a number of rules for the filming, including working from one long take per scene. This acted as a framework that allowed us to think about acting, mise en scène and camera work in a particular way. However, when it came to editing with Dieter Diependaele, we abandoned the self-imposed ‘rules of the game’ and looked for the right rhythm for the material we had filmed.
Alphonse Dubois
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