Interviews with Elin Kirschfink, AFC, SBC, and director Carine Tardieu on the film "L’Attachement"

Sandra, a fiercely independent woman in her fifties, suddenly becomes involved in the private lives of her next-door neighbor and his two children, against her will. Against all odds, she gradually becomes attached to this adopted family. But who is she to them ? Who are they to her ?

Elin Kirschfink : This is not a choral film, but it’s hard to identify who the main character is...
For me, all 4 characters (Alex, Sandra, Emillia and Eliott) are equally important in the film, and their respective points of view play out in turn. This makes perfect sense to me, as the film is basically about closeness within a family. What is this thing, how is it formed, and, of course, how is it built over time... Carine and I together discussed precisely the nature of that bond during our preparation. She has a very precise way of working : she prepares by breaking down all the scenes and giving the crew a very complete document that brings together her influences, the cuts, and her ideas for the entire creation of the film. Once she’s freed of this, she can devote herself totally to the actors on the set. She’s also a director who’s very attached to the screenplay and the spoken lines. For her, it’s out of the question to change a line on set, and when faced with actors who are adept at improvisation, you have to know how to get things done and hold the line !

Where did you shoot ?

EK : Although it’s not mentioned directly in the film, everything was shot in Rennes, keeping travel to a minimum, as part of a very environmentally-friendly production approach. Everything was shot on location, including the two neighboring apartments, which we really attempted to find on location. We almost succeeded, as we finally found two apartments in the same building, but one floor apart. This face-to-face relationship was solidified by the way we cut the film, and thanks to this situation we could easily maintain a certain continuity in the acting by simply moving from one floor to the other depending on the scene... As I couldn’t make myself available for the entire shooting period because of another commitment, Yann Maritaud filled in for me for about ten days, during the part shot in winter. So that we could adopt the same approach, he operated a second camera on the wedding sequence (the only one shot with two cameras) and was able to observe the method Carine and I had adopted over the course of a few days of preparation and cutting. As our script breakdown was fairly well established in advance and part of the moodboard I mentioned, Yann watched the dailies of the first part and generously followed in my footsteps. I don’t think you can really tell the difference between the two parts.

The film’s writing relies heavily on the passage of time, with chapters marked by the age of the young protagonist.

EK : It’s true that I racked my brains quite a bit to figure out how to convey the passage of time and seasons on screen, but reality sometimes decides otherwise. The final sequence, for example, which was intended to be very sunny in the park, was planned to be shot in summer to ensure good weather, but we came very close to a disastrous day due to... torrential summer rain that finally stopped in the late morning, but the sky alternated between very gray and full sun afterwards...
As for the apartments, I had very little room for maneuvering, with very low ceilings and few control options from the outside. To be able to move quickly from one scene and season to the next, or to ensure continuity in lighting with the change in the sun’s position, I decided to use Plexiglas sheets, in 2 different densities, which could be quickly installed on the windows to control the level of outside light and balance the interior compensation. When we received these sheets, we were surprised to find that they were heavily tinted cyan... We made do, aligning the green and/or blue compensations according to the mix we wanted and this enabled us to calibrate the whole in a coherent way.

I still prefer to work with classic HMIs or Tungstens, even though LEDs are were an integral part of our palette. Jean-Baptiste Moutrille, my faithful and brilliant electro-technician, and I had started out with the idea of compensating for outside light, entering through a large south-facing bay window, with HMIs (M18s and above all Joker Bug 800s with Source Four, which make it easy to bounce the light off of different materials). We gave up on this idea after two days... the south-facing apartment with the lights and the crew quickly became a sauna... And finally, working with RGB LEDs enabled us to adjust the color more quickly than the Plexiglas colors, which differed according to the densities.
Large caps, installed on pulleys from the apartment above by Corentin Geisen, our key grip (also top-notch), could be outfitted with blacks or diffusers and set up relatively quickly. Obviously, these two systems combined weren’t a magic solution like a tent that can be thrown to the side in two seconds, so we made choices the day before based on the weather forecast and the sequences to be shot.
A terrace allowed us to install a Molebeam, with which, on multiple mirrors, we could insert false sun spots into certain sequences. Mathieu Vaillant, the first assistant director, and I had previously made a list of each season, and each lighting mood we desired in these two apartments, since the screenplay was set over a period of two years. In the end, I realize that it was rather the costumes, set design and staging that mark the passage of time on screen. The narration of time is also aided by exterior cuts, whether it’s the city invading a sequence, drops of water beginning to fall, frost on the graves...

The film starts out cold, then warms up a little, and ends in white... Was this your intention ?

EK : I’m not really into intellectualizing light. It’s difficult, for example, to put words to this or that evolution or shift on the scale of the film. I work much more by feeling, by sensations in the film, seeing myself as a humble listener to each sequence, trying to propose solutions that are both simple and quick, to fit the scenes into the often rather busy shooting schedule. To build lighting continuity, I read the screenplay again and again, integrating the constraints linked first to the sets and then to the work plan into my initial vision as I go along. With this method, I manage to build something that seems coherent both artistically and practically... But it’s a complex process all the way through, and by the end I don’t know where I started from. 

Another example of integrating constraints is the work we did with the (large) glasses worn by Valéria, an integral part of this character’s look. This element forces you to light in a certain way, and we ended up making our frames look like windows, by gluing false sash bars on the gaffer or dressing up our sources with rounded shapes so that they vaguely resembled the prop lighting. It worked out pretty well, apart from one sequence where I didn’t anticipate being so tired that I fell asleep at the camera, which is easy to notice in the film !

What’s more, when you end up with very young children as the main actors, adaptability is paramount. That’s one of the reasons why we chose to shoot in S35 with modern Summilux lenses. Alexandre Berry (love love) is a very good focus puller, but we didn’t want to put him under pressure with the minimalist depth of field of a large sensor, as we did on Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s Sambre, for example.

Let’s talk about the children at the heart of this story...

EK : It was our little actor César and the several little girls who play his half-sister who always came first in the shooting order. We almost invariably started with them, as their available time was very limited compared to the rest of the cast. To make things easier, Carine used a lot of long takes, during which she could have a word or phrase repeated, which she would then use in the edit. This was to maintain a certain fluidity and not break the importance of the first takes. On this kind of sequence, you have to be ready at the camera at all times. So I set myself up on a cube, with wheels, and could immediately reposition myself or find the perfect spot. This priority also meant that we sometimes had to cut a scene in half, and bridge it with the adults the next day. For example, the stethoscope sequence with the little girl, which was almost a minor miracle given the actress’s age (12 months), was shot over the course of two days, with plenty of sunshine on the second day that I didn’t have the day prior... As for the night sequences, they were almost all shot during the day, with blacks. It’s true that we lost a bit of depth, but once again, it was the presence of the children in the frame that determined the shooting configuration.

Another factor related to the presence of children is the height of the viewpoint, which was often very low and therefore low-angle. This made the construction of the ceiling lighting grid a true headache. Corentin pushed his inventiveness to the limit in terms of offsets and modularity, and here again, our preliminary layout helped us a great deal in anticipating things. To the best of my recollection, only once did we find ourselves in a situation where the technical devices fell into the frame…

What did you learn from this film ?

EK : With each film I learn to trust my instincts a bit more... I’ve always felt comfortable behind the camera, and with time I’ve come to realize that when it comes to lighting, when someone trusts me like Carine does, I can trust myself too... I’d also like to say a huge thank you to my entire camera crew, as well as Pascale (set design), Gaby (props), Nathalie (costumes) and Sylvian (location management), who were essential collaborators...

Attachment is a film about family and the passage of time. How do you tell that story on screen ?

Carine Tardieu : As soon as I started writing, I had the idea of marking the passage of time with inserts indicating the age of the little girl from her birth at the beginning of the story, which takes place over two years. This is a way of evoking the irreversibility of attachment, while also marking the stages of mourning, since each of the child’s birthdays coincides with the anniversary of her mother’s death. As far as the passage of time is concerned, the decision to split the shoot into two blocks (summer and early winter 2023) enabled us to mark the seasons on location. Even so, we sometimes had to cheat on certain shooting atmospheres that didn’t correspond to the film’s season, for reasons of location availability or the actors’ schedules. Several sequences gave us a hard time, such as the heatwave scene in which the little girl is taken to the emergency room in the middle of the night, shot in the second block, with the actors having to endure sub-zero temperatures in their summer outfits. That said, with a bit of fake sweat, a few fans and some extras fanning themselves, the portrayal of hot weather seems pretty realistic, I think. We also used the calendar to mark the seasons, with more or less visible Easter egg hunts, the galette des rois, the presence of a Christmas tree or Christmas decorations in the bookshop...

Can you give us an example of a scene whose tone changed between screenplay and shooting ?

CT : The family lunch sequence with the grandmother’s toast ("to life"). At the time of writing, it was supposed to be a beautiful springtime outdoor lunch, with the sunshine needed at this stage of the story to indicate the rebirth of hope, and also one of the rare opportunities to get some fresh air in this film shot mainly in two apartments and in the city... But it had to be moved indoors because of bad weather... At the time, I was frankly disappointed, but in the end, I like to think that the reason this lunch took place indoors is because it hints that its apparent lightheartedness is deceptive, that the characters still have a long way to go before they reach a brighter outcome or a form of peace.

The first act of the film is quite cold and gray...

CT : As the story is about the death of a woman, I didn’t want the image to run counter to the context. The first scenes in the bookshop or in the apartment are relatively austere, and the scene in which Elliot is told that his mother has died is a rather sad gray dawn...

Let’s talk about that momentous scene, when Eliott learns of his mother’s death... The word "already" in his mouth sums up both the innocence and the gravity of the whole film.

CT : The film is the adaptation of a novel, from which my co-writers and I ultimately diverged quite a bit, but this line in particular, which upset me when I read it, was a major factor in my decision to embark on this project. It plunges us into the head of a child whose relationship to time is totally different from that of an adult : Elliott doesn’t realize what it’s like to have lost his mother. He understands how tragic it is, and at the same time has no idea what it will mean. I was also touched by this fiercely independent 50-year-old woman, who never wanted to have children and whose life is suddenly turned upside down by her encounter with a bereaved boy and his stepfather.
Regarding this sequence, I wanted to switch to Sandra’s point of view as soon as possible. We didn’t shoot Elliot’s face when Alex told him the news. I felt it was immodest to be "on him" at that moment, and above all, staying with Sandra as she discreetly listened to them allowed us to experience this shift, this crystallization, with her. From the moment she witnessed this scene, there was no turning back... Whether she likes it or not, she’s definitely involved in their tragedy...

The other challenge was to accompany Pio Marmaï in a highly tragic register that was quite new to him. To help him, I suggested, although I wasn’t sure of myself, that he set his alarm clock every hour the night before, to reach a degree of exhaustion close to that of the character... And I think that’s more or less what he did : that morning he arrived on the set, extremely concentrated, looking haggard and defeated... as if filled with tears... The whole crew, silently around him, worked hard to keep the waiting time between shots as short as possible... Valeria, too, was a wonderful and generous partner in these situations. Afterwards, I think he was both exhausted and happy he managed to let himself go like that...

How did you select your young actor ?

CT : At 5 ½ years (the age at which he auditioned), César already had one essential quality : listening, an attention to others, an insatiable eye and curiosity for his partners... When I was casting, I saw a whole host of children capable of handling the script, but César stood out from the rest because he was pretty much the only one capable of handling silence in particular. And he had the desire and the joy ! César was overflowing with enthusiasm and looked forward to meeting the cast and crew every morning... Nevertheless, like all children his age, even with only 4 hours of presence on set, he tired quickly, and we had to make the most of the first takes. So, I sometimes resorted to a few strategies to get him to say a particular line that didn’t come across naturally, such as leaving the camera running at the end of a take, and asking him to repeat the lines after me. This "parrot" method was quite effective. I remember, for example, some very simple lines that sounded wrong in his mouth because they were written with contractions and César spoke "too well" for a child his age.

Elin mentioned your thick, Bible-like shooting schedule !

CT : In preproduction, I broke down all the sequences in situ with Elin, first assistant Mathieu Vaillant and script supervisor Anaïs Sergeant. We acted out the scenes, taking turns embodying the characters, looking for what felt right from an emotional point of view and how to transcend it all through the image... Then I gave the crew a comprehensive document of my influences (films, music, costumes, etc.), as well as a sort of storyboard made up of photos taken during this pre-cut. With everyone knowing exactly what they have to do when they arrive on set, I could concentrate primarily on my actors.

For L’Attachement, I referenced very different films that inspired me, one for its casting, the other for its frames, its artistic direction, or all of the above... I remember, for example, asking Vimala Pons to re-watch one of my favorite films, James Brooks Tendres Passions (1983), in which Debra Winger plays a character who seemed to me quite close to Emilia’s in terms of energy. I also rewatched Kramer vs. Kramer, about a man who suddenly finds himself solely responsible for a child. I was also thinking of Boyhood, for its management of ellipses and the passage of time, and family ties of course, or Noah Baumbach’s cinema, which is able to depict the most complex feelings with apparent simplicity. For his frames too... In fact, without pitting one against the other, I think I’m more sensitive to the frame than to the light as a general rule... And in this respect, I can’t fail to mention Claude Sautet, whose films I watch again and again during every preproduction : his way of getting as close as possible to his actors, his art of shot-reverse-shot, never ceases to fascinate me. Finally, I’d like to mention a lesser-known film, Kolya, by Czech filmmaker Jan Sveràk (1996), which tells the story of a 60-year-old hardened bachelor musician who has to take care of a 5-year-old child against his will.

What did you learn from this film ?

CT : It’s hard to say ! I come away from every shoot exhausted, for different reasons every time... When you’re a director, each film requires a great deal of persistence, commitment and energy, of course... I’d say that on L’Attachement, it was the cast as a whole that was the most complex for me to manage. The combination of very strong personalities on the adult side, plus the presence of young César and so many babies, made each day intense, to say the least ! Not letting go of anything, knowing how to keep some of them emotionally in check while supporting the others, giving them enough room for freedom while trying to make them stick to the screenplay.

Raphaël Quenard has such an assertive personality that you have to work him to the bone to get the person he’s playing to take over from the actor. I wanted to take him into a more restrained role than in his previous films. His character, David, walks on eggshells - at least in the first part of the film... For me, it was a question of helping Raphaël to find a different rhythm of diction, to hold back a little of his elation. As for Vimala Pons, she’s a hard worker, intense, unpredictable, she can be everything and its opposite : from one take to the next, mastering her feelings or abandoning herself completely to an emotion that I had to channel when necessary. For Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, the character of Sandra was almost a contradiction in terms. Valeria is naturally quite expansive, and she has a very instinctive relationship with children. In the script, Sandra was, on the contrary, a restrained, even aloof woman who weighs every word. On set, I had to curb her naturalness to keep the character on track. But in the end, her natural acting went far beyond my expectations. And even if the shoot was sometimes trying for both of us, we don’t regret our struggles, and I think she’s now very keen to watch the film in Venice.

(Interviews by François Reumont, and translated from French by A. Baron Raiffe for the AFC)