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| Lucas Pastor as Stéphane |
Have you ever met somebody for the first time, gone along with them for a little while, and suddenly realised that you’re completely out of your depth? That’s what happens to young filmmaker Tim (Bastien Garcia) when he meets Stéphane (Lucas Pastor). One moment the overenthusiastic stranger is praising his work and offering him dinner; the next he’s inviting him to stay on his boat, and taking him away to an island where they decide to make a film together. Along the way, it gradually dawns on Tim that Stéphane, who is behaving more and more oddly, might very possibly be dangerous. The film, written and directed by Lucas and his friend Timothée Hochet, screened at this year’s Beyond Fest and, though it was far from the biggest title there, it will probably prove to be the hardest to forget. I was delighted when the two agreed to meet and talk about them, and I asked them – you’ll understand why when you see it – if it was inspired by anybody in particular.
“We all know someone like Stéphane,” says Timothée. We all know someone who is weird and thinks he's funny, and you know, he likes to talk, he likes to have the attention. And so we all have someone in our mind, but not one person.”
“It’s a combination of a lot of people we can meet in our daily lives,” adds Lucas.
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| An explosive introduction |
“It began with Lucas playing Stéphane basically, in a short movie that we did,” Timothée continues. “And he had this makeup on. And the short movie wasn't about him, but we had so many ideas. When Lucas was in Stéphane, we really liked this weird and funny but scary man. And so we wanted to do a movie about him. We wanted to see more of him and to just see where he can take us. So in the writing process, we always had in mind Lucas playing Stéphane. And it was really helpful because Lucas could play him during the writing, you know? If it was useful to know if a joke works or it doesn't work. Is it scary? Is it not scary? it was like always to think about Stéphane. Tim came after.
“Tim, basically, is very much inspired by us, ourselves, when we made short films with a single camera and with no crew except our friends. And it was just that energy of ‘Let's do something!’ It was something that we wanted to develop, what is it to make a movie? What's good, what's not good, what everything is. Stéphane and Tim don't agree on the movie that they want to make, but us as an audience, we know it's not good either way. So it was fun to play with what we think is good and what we think is bad. And yeah, to develop someone that isn't really talented, I think, in his filmmaking career, and he's like, he doesn't have anybody to help him.
“So this is a story between Stéphane, a man that for once in Tim’s life, believes in him, believes in his talent, and what that attention can can do to someone, and where it can lead to. Because the hook is that Stéphane is like, ‘Okay, I believe in you,’ and Tim is like, ‘Okay, I'm going to follow you all the way.’ So that's an unhealthy relationship but it was what we wanted to develop between the two of them.”
I tell them that I like the way that we see most of the film through a handheld camera because it means that everything is filtered through a character’s perspective – usually Tim’s.
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| Stéphane shows off his ride |
“At the beginning of the writing, it was what we wanted,” says Timothée, “because the movie is about a lot of things, but it's about making a movie. And so we need to see how they handle a camera, how they then they play with it. And it was also just an homage to the found footage genre that we love. That was something that we wanted to develop in France because in France there is only comedy in found footage, and we wanted to do a horror one.”
He pauses as Lucas shares his thoughts in French, then translates.
“Also we think we are way closer to the character in this way. Because this is an intimate thing, to see through their camera. It's basically their eyes. So it was telling a lot of the character and how they handled this.”
Much of the film is set in a big, rambling house on an island, which makes Stéphane seem like a kind of budget supervillain. I ask them how they found that and Timothée tells me that it’s an Airbnb.
“We wanted to have a house on an island. It's not an island, we cheated. There is just a river below the house. We found it and we needed something to shoot in it and to also have the crew rest in. We slept on the location. Every room was occupied during the shooting. And so it was like, ‘Okay, this is a good house because we can make believe that it's and island, and also it's huge. It's like Stéphane. It's too much. And it's weird. It's kind of empty. We don't really know if he's living here.”
The possibilities offered by the location led them to make some additions to the script, he explains.
“We went to the location several times and we we wanted to use everything that was around us. And so you know, the swimming pool was there, and the chessboard that Stéphane plays with. For that shot where they're visiting the house, we just left Lucas and Bastien, who plays Tim, just to walk around for like 40 minutes, and it was all improv and it was just see what's interesting in the in the house and play with it, and we will keep it or not in the movie.”
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| Bastien Garcia as Tim |
There are some dramatic moments in the film when Stéphane decides to try to capture one of the wild horses on the island. The stunt work was performed by the owner of the horses, Timothée explains. Lucas was disappointed because he had wanted to do some of it himself, but he got the chance to make up for it later with a quad bike stunt.
“There’s a scene when I was on a on a quad and I'm twitching because Stéphane is angry, and I have to lose control of the quad and I have to jump a bit. It’s a little stunt.”
“Yeah,” says Timothée. “He was so sad, so we had him jump out of a quad, which isn't in the movie actually, but we did this for him because he wanted to.”
“It was my birthday,” Lucas reminds him.
Timothée adds that for him, the most exciting part of the film was the firework scene close to the end. “We kind of were all of us excited because all we had was one firework, like it's a big, big, big thing. And yeah, that was the most fun part, but also to just see Lucas and Bastien play. I remember the scene on the boat when they're just getting closer and getting to know each other, and they are like, ‘Let's make a movie on the boat.’ That scene may be my best memory because we just let them live their life for 40 minutes on the boat and we were listening. I was feeling it was a great thing because it was maybe the first time on the I was like, ‘Okay, this is a movie. There is a story, there are characters, and I want to see them go through this.”
