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What were the first images that came to mind when you first discovered the project ?
Aurélien Marra : Having joined the film quite late due to scheduling constraints, I discovered the script, the cast, and the real house that would serve as the film’s main setting all at the same time. With these three elements in hand, I remember that the first images that came to mind had to do with the excessive scale, the disproportion between the character of Marianne (played by Mélanie Thierry) and the vast spaces surrounding her.
Simply imagining her silhouette against those windows, at least three times her height, opening on a blank view—already provided a rather telling representation of the film’s central themes.
Confinement through open spaces ?
AM : Yes, this idea of a stucked horizon was important. This mansion was full of openings... The opposite of a prison ! But as it was nestled in the heart of a park, David and I realised that the vegetation could easily become a sort of a natural wall. To achieve this, we had to keep the outside view within the range of exposure, and this is a concept that really influenced the film.
In particular, during pre-production, we came up with the idea of creating this little daily ritual where Marianne has her coffee in front of the bow window in the living room. These are images and moments of meditative melancholy that recur often and help convey what Marianne is going through.
David had also given me a cinematic reference that undoubtedly had an immediate influence on how I imagined the film... Mainly about the distance to Marianne’s character… In this case, Michel Franco’s Memory (cinematography by Yves Cape, AFC), which I discovered on this occasion. A film that blew me away ! Both for its beauty and its cinematic rigour. I was truly very impressed by Yves’s work...
At first glance, Memory also shares the winter setting with your film, doesn’t it ?
AM : Yes, that’s true… But I think it was above all the extraordinary restraint in the blocking that struck me. Memory is a very minimalist film in terms of the number of shots and also offers a very rigorous photographic approach, particularly in the distance between the camera and the characters. We’re only close to the faces when it’s really necessary.
It was a very exciting starting point, but as we progressed through pre-production, we realised that the aesthetic balance of Michel Franco’s film wasn’t necessarily the right one for us.
Memory works to set the plot – beneath a very everyday and naturalistic façade – for the revelation of an unspeakable trauma that emerges with great brutality in highly intense scenes. For our part, we wanted to depict a daily life that gradually erodes, without any secret or climactic revelation. And I feared that using this strict minimalism to show this domestic struggle might backfire, coming across as too ‘tone-on-tone’ or too literal.
So we decided to keep the editing very understated whilst moving towards slightly less minimalist photographic atmospheres. We also personified the house more to weigh down the imagery.
Ultimately, this single reference to Memory served as our guide. We returned to it during pre-production in a game of similarities and differences compared to what we had in mind.
A very concrete approach, really ! Quite a departure from another, more abstract method, which involves compiling a series of references picked up here and there depending on the scenes or settings...
Your film also opens with a flashback prologue, but one that’s impossible to link immediately to the rest of the story...
AM : I really like this kind of forms. Presenting the viewer, right at the start, with a situation that isn’t explained... immediately overshadowed by a narrative with no connection - at first glance. Then it seeps in until it creates – when the time comes and the link is explained – a fairly strong sense of temporal grounding.
To be perfectly honest, this scene almost didn’t make it into the film... Faced with budget constraints, several pages of the script were on the chopping block, including this prologue. And I admit I myself was torn about whether this scene would work, given the production challenges.
The question of casting was a particular concern. Who would play our two teenage protagonists ? Whilst the providential presence of Jérémy Rénier’s own son, Oskar, gave us great reassurance, the task of finding a young woman who could pass for Mélanie Thierry was more delicate. At one point, a de-ageing effect was even considered so that she could play the part herself in this scene... And then, finally, we found the young actress who could play Marianne at 19 (Brune Moulin), and the scene was greenlighted.
On set, I must say I was quite convinced. Something both unsettling and moving emanated from the scene. Ididn’t try at all to visually mark the twenty years earlier thing. No camera effects, or changes in texture and colour during grading, distinguish this scene from the rest of the film. In fact, the idea was to open the film with a timeless prologue.
As if this event didn’t even belong to the past and could be entirely contemporary with the rest of the narrative.
Let’s return to winter… the film’s atmosphere is really woven to it.
AM : The film was indeed shot in the middle of January and February 2025. The issue of daylight duration in a setting with so many windows led me to develop a strategy that was rather counter-intuitive and unusual for me.
The film’s modest budget, and short shooting schedule as the human and technical resources we could afford, led me to decide not to use any heavy technical equipment outdoors. No aerial platforms or cherry peikers, and worked with a selection of fairly lightweight lights... The most powerful of which was a 1200W Dedolight PB70 (a parallel-beam light designed to feed into a dedicated reflector and mirror system). This was paired with a 2.4kW and a 1.2kW Nanlux Evoke.
As we rarely had outdoor set-ups – or at least only lightweight ones – we gained flexibility by being able to go out very quickly to shoot scenes depending on the weather conditions at the time. I remember, for example, the first day of shooting, with beautiful winter sunshine, quite low in the sky. We made the most of and managed to shoot a long scene with the whole family in the living room. As well as a series of shots around the house and in the garden. We must have done around 23 shots on that first day, getting everyone into that rhythm and flexibility which was key to the project.
All the main interior sets, however, were permanently pre-lit with technical grids. The equipment remained in place throughout the duration of the ‘House’ set, particularly in the living room and kitchen, which were locations where many scenes took place. The bedrooms, on the other hand, were managed on a rolling basis one or two days in advance depending on the schedule...
Many SL 1s and Kinos LEDs were fixed in place, and the support of the Panavision team was crucial to the viability of this technical and logistical approach.
So you were able to adapt to the changes in natural light ?
AM : Most of the time, I embraced whatever the weather brought. Particularly given the desire to maintain good visibility in the shots. Trying to fight against the outdoors would have been counterproductive. The photographic atmosphere of each scene therefore generally relied on what was visible outside, and on whether or not the sun was present. We adjusted the contrasts and lighting directions mainly from indoors.
The sequence that perhaps most contradicts this method is the continuity day in the film where Laure’s communion takes place . A block of sequences across many sets, shot over about three days. Which, of course, began in sunshine before sliding into fairly sustained spells of rain ! There, I had to push things a little harder and bend reality more conventionally in our direction, even if it meant occasionally sacrificing the reading of the outside views.
No gelatin filters on the windows, for example ?
AM : Not particularly, except for the twilight scenes, which are mostly entirely recreated , shot in broad daylight. It was the only way to cope with the low light levels from the available light sources...
Which sequence gave you the most work ?
AM : I mentioned the communion sequence earlier. And within that section, there’s the church sequence, which was by far the most demanding for me and the whole crew. Shot largely with a telephoto lens to capture those fleeting exchanges of glances between Marianne in the front row and Johan at the very back of the congregation. We really had to use every last bit of the truck’s equipment... .
Using a 25-250 HR with a converter, in a dark church in the middle of winter... I’ll let you guess what it took to match it with wide shots filmed at T2... To create the illusion that the stained-glass windows were at the same light level…
Right at the very end of the film, a poignant scene of confession between Marianne and her daughter takes place in a car. This is no trivial matter, and you chose to film it from the outside...
AM : Indeed, we’re talking about modesty on screen here. Filming such a powerful scene from inside the car would undoubtedly have felt too raw to us… I don’t know if David and I consciously decided on this. When I think about this kind of thing, The Godfather Part III suddenly springs to mind. A scene in which Michael Corleone goes to confess to Cardinal Lamberto in a Vatican cloister. An exchange that starts off quite ordinary, but as the camera angle shifts, a sort of dense foliage comes into the foreground, creating a transition that restores a sense of modesty to the scene. Beyond the deliberate ‘confessional grille’ effect in that film, I’m telling you this to illustrate just how right this sort of slight visual barrier strikes me.
Returning to our own scene in the car, it is the reflections in the side windows that play this role. The characters open up their intimacy to us, yet are protected by this small visual barrier. I find that it offers a less direct and less intrusive view of the characters’ tears in the scene. Strangely, I find it more moving, as if our own modesty as viewers is symbolically or unconsciously preserved.
What did you learn from this film ?
AM : This project made me realise, right from the preparation stage, that I couldn’t aspire to a great deal of control over the photographic intentions. Perhaps the project where the least in advance I could decided how things were going to be. I tried to adapt as I went along, asking myself each time this single question : ‘What is the reality of what is in front of me… and what is the scope for working within this framework ?’.
It was also a way of not expending too much energy on bringing things back to oneself. Seizing reality in the moment, toning it down or exaggerating it if needed… or simply making it more consistent over time. That was the philosophy of Harris Savides,ASC one of my cinematography masters. Thanks to his flexibility, I feel he always managed to bring his sensitivity and vision to the fore, even under very restrictive conditions. For me, this truly the ultimate benchmark, a legacy that a guy like Robbie Ryan is currently carrying forward in his own way.
(Interview by François Reumont for the AFC)
La Femme de
Production : Candice Zaccagnino & Olivier Aknin
Production Manager : Samuel Bilboulian
Stage Manager : Korentin Guivarch
Director : David Roux
First Assistant Director : Amandine Escoffier, assisted by Marianne Caillaud
Director of Photography : Aurélien Marra, AFC
Production Designer : Chloé Cambournac, ADC
Costume Designer : Ariane Daurat
Make-up : Alice Robert
Hair : José-Luis Casas Serrano
Sound recordist : Franck Cartaut
Editor : Benjamin Favreul
Sound mixer : Christophe Vingtrignier
Composer : Quentin Sirjacq
