Mother and Son was met to great critical acclaim when it premiered in Cannes last year, and finally it now makes its way to audiences this side of the Channel, and to mark the occasion we had the pleasure in speaking to filmmaker Léonor Serraille in Paris at the beginning of the year.
We discuss the themes of the film, the casting of her leading woman Annabelle Lengronne, and exploring the socio-political situation in France in regards to the relationship between the establishment and minorities. We also talk about the success of her preceding feature Jeune Femme, and what sort of impact that had on this project.
I was reading that this story has been with you for some time, why was now the right time to tell it?
It was my second movie and I was very stressed and I maybe wanted not to make another movie, so my producer told me to make the movie as if it was my last movie, and I wanted to tell this story. I love this story and I want to understand what happens to this family and I want to write about it, and writing takes so much time and you feel so lost in a subject, that I wanted to write it.
Was it an itch you had to scratch, do you feel like you have made peace with it?
Not really, it was more like something that hurt that I needed to understand.
Annabelle is wonderful. I wanted to ask about the casting of the character and what it was about her that you loved?
We had decided we wanted to cast the mother first, we needed her first. We saw maybe 8 or 9 actresses and then Annabel walked in, and I can’t remember for what reason but she was on the verge of tears and very emotional and very on edge to be auditioning, and an encounter took place between me and the character and I could tell that Annabel needed to be that character and I felt that I wanted to film her. She has so much charisma and I could spot that she was the woman who could go through all these decades and be credible.
There is such journey the character has to go on – were you able to shoot chronologically at all, to help her?
Maybe 80% was chronological. It was a great experience for all of us and it was nice because we could change some things in the story. It was also good for the character, Annabel crossed everything and she was very stressed about meeting Ernest at the end because it was her little boy, and with Ahmed the actor it was very intense. They never saw each other before the shoot, I asked them please not to meet, just at the end. It was very interesting to have elements from all the previous scenes feed into the next ones and then tell characters what had happened.
Jeune Femme was a wonderful film, and that was a big success. Did that help you when making this? Not just in terms of budget, but in terms of freedom, did you feel more freedom to tell this story?
No, on the contrary. I felt panicked and very stressed about this Golden Camera. I was very, very stressed and it helped a lot because when we sent the scripts of Mother & Son people were very happy to read my script, so it was good for the money and everything, but I didn’t feel very good. But when the shooting started, I was very happy. Every worry was erased and I was very happy to be there to make the movie, I love my job, it’s nice. But before there was too much pressure.
This was nominated for a Palme d’Or – does that help, do you think, to have that sort of label on yourself, on the movie, do you think it has implications?
I was more comfortable with this one than the first one. The first one for Jeune Femme I got the Golden Camera, it was a lot of pressure on me, a bit too much pressure. But it did help me make the second movie. The second one I felt we worked well and I wanted the spotlight on the movie, on the actors, and so it’s not really a label but more like recognition of what has been done, and I now I think I feel okay to work on the third.
There’s a scene towards the end when Ernest is questioned by the police, which is an affecting scene, they ask for his ID papers and of course he is French, but in their eyes he doesn’t “look French”. Is that an added element you wanted to explore in this movie?
That scene I experienced in life with my boyfriend so many times, it was important because in the movie it happens later when you think maybe the characters have been through so many things maybe now they are feeling good, but they are not, because society tells them otherwise, and that is France now. It was a moment when a character presents himself and his name, and it’s like it’s the first scene you should have not at the beginning but at the end, to end the circle. But I think that scene is much lighter than what really happens in France today. Sadly enough it is a very commonplace scene, it happens every day, and it just shows what the atmosphere is like in France today.
To be racially profiled in society, and by the police is something that I take for granted and can’t understand in the same way. So I wondered if you lent on your boyfriend’s experiences and knowledge to help you understand the story at all?
I think the life we share means I know a lot, because I have known him since I was 17. But the fact that is very important. We have in common, my partner and myself, we’re made up of different elements. Okay he is a black man and he is from Africa and he came to France when he was 4 years old, and he’s also a teacher, a lover and a father and he reads Floubert, so he can’t be summed up by one colour. Same goes for me, I am a woman but I am not just that, and we really share the fact we are multi-faceted people, it informs our daily lives, and I think to that extent we live in the future because today you feel you have to make a stand, either you’re for or you’re against, but in real life you don’t always want to be an activist, and you also want movies or books to show you the whole range of your being.
Was he on set at all to support you and was he involved, even?
No, I started writing it and he told me ‘I don’t want to help you’, he wanted to discover the movie finished. I was like, really? Are you sure you don’t want to help? And he told me that I made my first movie alone, so it was okay to do it the same way, it would work. I was very stressed in the editing because I was editing two things at one moment, and I showed him a scene and he helped me, but he didn’t really help, he wanted me to feel very free about the subject and to make it my own way. In the end that was good, I was very shy when he was looking, but it was okay.
The film does show that the decisions a parent can make can have big implications on a child’s future, but was it very important for you as a storyteller to not be judgemental at all of your characters? Because I always think that all parents can make small mistakes, but are trying their best.
Yes, that was very important, and it is in life to make a lot of mistakes and to try a lot, so in a movie, as a viewer, I don’t want to go to the cinema and to hear that you have to do this or do that. No, you just have to observe the complexity of people. When you are in the cinema you have the time to do it, two hours, three hours to stop time and go inside somebody’s life, and I have a lot of love for my characters that I am filming, and I want them to be generous with the public. I am not here to judge them, but they have to exist in a multi-faceted capacity.
You mentioned your third film – are you working on it already?
Yes, I am writing it now and it’s at the very beginning, but I also writing a film for TV too, so I am mixing the two stories. I don’t know what will happen.
Mother and Son is out in cinemas now.
