When the Camera Stopped Rolling, Life Changed Forever
The very first European cinema that came to life with the European film ‘Elles’ was the remarkable work with this particular movie starring Juliette Binoche. The movie was more than just European cinema. It exceeded the boundaries of European cinema. It was right in the year of 2011 that European cinema was graced with this masterpiece. It was with the utmost pleasure that I got to speak with the filmmaker of the particular movie, ‘Elles’, who was best credited Małgorzata Szumowska. The Małgorzata Szumowska directed movie focuses on the life of a journalist of Paris. The movie revolves around the life of ‘Anne’ who is being portrayed by Juliette Binoche. The journalist who is being portrayed by Juliette Binoche goes on a venture to authenticate the lives of a particular group of people, a group of school going individuals, who work in the industry of sex in order to manage paying school fees. The journey of this Parisian journalist is truly remarkable. It captures the essence of more than just school. It captures the disguise of the people, the society, the world. It is a work full of exploration.
It is a work full of exploration. The actors in this film were captured in great style. The style with which the actors put forth their work was indeed liberation. The people became bold, not just in the life, but in the work they were doing. The actors who were bold were much more liberated than the people who were not bold. The people who were not bold suffered in life with typecasting. It could also be said that life after this film was not any different than what was portrayed. The amount of drama that was captured in this film is beyond. ‘Elles’, I could say is one of the priceless pieces.
Juliette Binoche: Yet again, she has to reinvent herself
Juliette Binoche has always been a chameleon. She had a better chance of being recognized by people as an international star because of films like The English Patient and Chocolat, by the time she stepped into the shoes of Anne. However, Binoche had to tackle a lot of stereotypes and the false moral restraints and middle-class moral superiority to pick the role of a journalist who starts to realize that her subjects might be more free than her, which was a difficult task.
For Binoche personally, the role reflected a stage in her life when she was exploring themes of freedom and femininity in cinema. After the movie, she has started to be more opened about her support toward narratives which were more centered around women and the interviews in which she described the “emotional nakedness” that actors give to their work, were more candid.Most importantly, the movie did not pigeonhole her, because it is one of the works that strengthened her image as a person who does not fear unpleasantness.
Joanna Kulig: From Poland to global recognition.
Joanna Kulig claims that Elles was the first step toward expanding her artistic profile. Before she played the role of Alicja, a student who faces her choices head-on, the actress was mostly known to the Polish cinema. It was a role that required a combination of strength and tranquility. Speaking to the press afterwards, she said the role was feared to pigeonhole her, but rather, it was liberating.
Joanna’s Kulig fearlessness in the film Elles was remarkable and it framed her performance for the world to watch. In a few years, she was the lead in the renowned film “Cold War (2018)” where she made her international impression. Aside from Anais Demoustier, Kulig was the only one who managed to construct a narrative based on the tension between sweetness and strength, complexity and rawness. The actress turned to her performance in Elles as the first step toward this remarkable feat.
Anaïs Demoustier: Breaking stereotypes quietly.
Demoustier Anaïs was a softer version of dies with panache. Charlotte was a girl burdened with necessity and self-inflicted Catholic guilt. Unlike the vivid admission of Komunyakaa’s ‘Refusal, Charlotte the Shy was Anaïs. In her, the residual ghost of severe restrictions to which many young women were silently predisposed was clearly visible in the choices they made that converged on family and religion.
In the past, Demoustier had often been assigned the roles of a ‘sweet French girl’. Those were days long gone, as now, after the movie, she started gaining interest in more complex portrayals of womanhood for example in Bird People and Alice et le Maire. While she may not have aimed for the same worldwide recognition as Kulig, it Elles did help with her gaining a reputation in French cinema as an actress prepared to feel discomfort in the pursuit of truth.
How the film altered trajectories of their lives and careers
Unlike other films, it is remarkable that Elles did not just remain a singular, isolated, one-off and terminal project in the careers of these women. For Binoche, it was another reinvention in an endless series. In the case of Kulig, it provided a platform to take off from. For Demoustier, it was a form of subtle defiance against typecasting. All of them were transformed as a result, often in a manner that was clear and in other respects, only in the small changes to the parts they selected later.
The behind the scenes of the film that profoundly impacted the artistry of the film.
During the film’s production, “live” actors were requested to perform polish free, unlike the norm of reconstruction of a character, Szumowska’s approach to characterisation was more fluid: she described each character as “living” scenes. “The emotional exhaustion of some of the scenes was because of the intertwining of character and self”, reflects Kulig. “ Juliette’s portrayal of her vulnerability as a form of power was a masterclass”, states Demoustier regarding her experience with Juliette as a student of acting. Demoustier continues, “It’s still a learning curve with her.”
Paradoxically, Szumowska herself noted that the film’s construction was semi-autobiographical because of the silencing and judgment that a woman has almost always to endure. This energy remained when the cameras and the lenses were pointed away, creating an atmosphere sterile enough to feel intimate and political enough to still capture the weight of the frame of the hands of Warsaw.
The Cultural Impact
Elles was seen as one of the more controversial films and for that reason, was the more talked about film at the time of release because some regarded her courage as iinitially exploitative. For actors like Kulig, this cultural impact was not isolated, as she pointed out that the bluntness of the film often resulted in numerous discussions with her by strangers. “It’s not uncommon for people to come and try to have a discussion with me about the film. They crossed lines with this one!”
“Unfortunately, people have a perception of me in relation to my character Anne, which inevitably makes the person appear less than human”, reflects Binoche.Compared to the film’s blast and bombast, the cultural injury was a pinprick, but, like the destruction it wrought on its personal actors, it was enduring.
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