"W H Y (N O T) B R A Z I L" "Early January I gave Alain Sarde a script to read:" "No Connection, my next film." "I've read it, dear Laetitia, from cover to cover." "Alain SARDE - famous producer" "I'm puzzled..." "What audience is it for?" "It's a mess, a shambolic jumble..." "Abysmal." "Absolutely abysmal." "We need an oculist here:" "There's a visibility problem." "No visibility." "What can we do?" "Raid the pharmacy before screening the film to spare the audience a headache." "To make a film like this you need anaesthetic," "I'd have to give the script readers an epidural because if they read that they'll scarper." "The decision-makers, the networks, they'll say:" "What slot?" "5 a.m.?" "For restricted audiences?" "Hospitals?" "They'll say:" "Have a coffee, forget that poor girl." "Forget her." "So I must forget you." "My name is Laetitia Masson." "Born 18/08/66 in Epinal, in the Vosges." "The story begins when the bank calls me." "10000 euros overdrawn." "How did it happen?" "2 years out of work." "If I don't make a film fast" "I'll have to borrow." "Who from?" "The bank?" "Never." "I'm an only child." "My parents are not rich." "I'd rather die than be kept." "My name is Laetitia Masson." "Born 18/08/66 in Epinal, in the Vosges." "The story begins when the bank calls me." "10000 euros overdrawn." "How did it happen?" "2 years out of work." " Laetitia Masson?" " Yes." "Maurice Rey, the famous producer." "Hello, Maurice." "I have a proposal for you..." "Come for coffee?" "At my office:" "83, Avenue Kleber, 75016." "6 p.m. Tomorrow?" "See you then." "Champagne?" "Bloody Mary?" "Pinacolada?" "JB?" "Manhattan?" "Gin Fizz?" "Martini?" "A glass of water." "Stephane!" "Glass of water, Central Park, two Rocamadour cheeses, well toasted." "Thank you." "I want you... to adapt Christine Angot's book," "Why Brazil?" " Have you read it?" " Yes." "I love it." "We're friends." "Great." "You're the ideal person to adapt it." "Impossible." "In what way?" "Impossible." "It's unadaptable." "How do you mean?" "I mean... it's unadaptable." "Unadaptable." "It's unadaptable..." "You don't want to work with me?" "Yes, I do but..." "I can't do it." "Do I frighten you?" "No." "But I don't see how..." "How it can be done." "Really." "Well, goodbye." "Think about it!" "You have my number." "My offices are always open." "You know where to find me." "Thank you, Stephane." "Error!" "I said toasted." "I called Christine." "I told her I'd refused Maurice Rey's offer." "She said I was wrong." "We could make an ambitious commercial film." "She said:" "Go high budget." "Adaptation is a good idea." "Why say it's impossible?" "Because it is impossible." "In the book Christine says I, it's about her relationship with a real man who she really falls in love with." "Her story isn't my story." "I'm not doing it." "I am doing it." " What?" " Adapting Why Brazil?" "." "I've had an idea." "The book is about love." "My subject is always love." "So I'll do the history of a love story." "See what I mean?" "The history of a story?" "Yes, like a historian." "Not the history of France or of Film:" "The history of a love story." "The book is their love story." "With the roots in the roots..." " The roots in the roots?" " Yes." "Her father and her lover are both called Pierre." "Christine's mother is Jewish, so is Pierre, it's all linked." "Their love isn't arbitrary, their roots connect, that's why it works." "Well, not only..." "Anyway..." "Eat up." "Do you see?" "Not really." " Be careful." " About what?" "I don't know." "Us." "Smoked salmon?" "Foie gras?" "Caviar?" "Oysters?" "Lobster?" "A bit of everything." "Canapes for the lady." "You're right." "Let's make Why not Brazil?" "." "Good!" "How do you see the film?" "Ambitious." "The cast, the sets..." "Let's go high budget." "You mean I give you a high budget." "Got an agent?" "No." "I tried to find one." "The famous Besnehard told me to stop making films like this." "Like what?" "I don't know." "He said World War III is on the way, people want films that help them forget it." "Anyway, he never called me back." "No agent." "No money." "Write a few pages then we'll start the first payments." "You have an office?" "What for?" "Won't this do?" "Yes." "How much?" "10000." "3." "Masson with two ss?" "First page Christine is alone." "The prehistory of love." "Waiting to meet someone who loves her." "But no one comes." "ALONE" "Everyone has been alone." "Me too." "Searching and waiting for love." "But I've forgotten what it's like." "First step:" "Discover it again." "You'll each meet 7 people tonight, one to one, for 7 minutes." "Usually we use Christian names." " It's my first time." " It's my second time." "I used to live with someone, we broke up 2 or 3 years ago." "The moment comes when you want some stability..." "Meeting someone in 7 minutes you need intuitions, feelings, perceptions..." "All the senses united." " Ever been married?" "Any kids?" " No." "Scared of spiders?" "No." "I'll leave you to the others." "I met 7 guys." "None of them wanted me." "Anyway I'm married, I must go home." "It's the pediatrician tomorrow." "Let's have a look..." "Does this hurt?" "It doesn't hurt?" "What about this?" "It hurts a bit." "Nothing serious, don't worry." "We must clear the memory of the pain." "We'll give him some physiotherapy." "I don't have time, I work." "Yes, but if not he'll stay blocked." "Just my luck..." "Get him dressed." "You work a lot?" "Yes." "I'm a bad mother." " I haven't seen your films." " You're not the only one!" "What are you working on now?" "It's about..." "Meeting someone." "Falling in love, adapting to the person you love..." "Why this person, not another... the connection with the parents, the origins..." "It's based on a book." "How strange." "I've just left my wife..." "If break-ups are relevant" "I can tell you about it..." "His prescription." "Call me if it still hurts." "There." "I like your name." "The most Jewish name in Paris." "It's beautiful." "I don't understand." "Me neither." "To us." "I could never film how we met here." "Never." "But Christine does." "She writes about meeting Pierre..." "Loving his mouth, his body, she writes his flesh..." "it's beautiful." "When you read the book you live it." "Maybe you don't love me enough." "I do, but I lived it, our story, with no distance." "I can't remember it." "It's my life." "I don't write about it." "I'm inspired by the unknown." "What's his name?" "The unknown in general." "The problem with filming this book is putting myself in Christine's place, if not, no film." "So you're falling in love with Pierre-Louis?" "Absolutely not!" "Not with Pierre-Louis." "But being faithful to Christine's book means doing what she does:" "Search for emotional truth." "Here's my question:" "I know what loving is." "It's being with the man I love." "I love deeply." "But falling in love, starting a love affair, advancing into the unknown," "I've forgotten that." "How can I film it?" "Does emotional memory exist?" "Of feelings, yes." "But of physical emotions?" "Take a deep breath." "Again." "A bit more." "What's his temperature?" "39. 5." "How are you?" "Very well." "Put out your tongue." "I've met someone." "Married, children..." "Malcolm is fine." "Probably a virus." "We'll bring his fever down." "Coming?" "Go and play." "Can you tell me... about your encounter?" "For my film?" "What's there to say?" "Why her?" "I don't know." "Her eyes." "The way she looks at me." "That's exactly it." "The subject of my film." "Tell me everything." "Everything?" "Why not?" "I'll call you." "We'll have coffee." "He never did." "Why am I disappointed?" "My film was a pretext." "I was pulling him, like a guy with a big car." "Except I have a small camera." "I don't know." "Am I just another Madame Bovary?" "Why do I think about him?" "I don't know." "What's the link with Brazil?" "I don't know." "Forget the pediatrician." "Make the film." "The normal way." "From the outside." "No one cares about the truth." "I've read it." "I find it..." "I don't see what you're getting at." "You're talking about yourself." "That pediatrician isn't interesting..." "Nor am I." "And films about films are dead now." "It's about love, not films." "Love?" " Where's love in this?" " I'm looking for it." "My dear," "I may be able to help you there." "Don't put that in the script." "And take out the names." "It's silly." "I can't, that's how to adapt it." "Telling it like it is." "Taking the romance out." "Showing the real thing." "Godard criticized Truffaut for showing" "Leauld in love in Day for Night, not himself." "It doesn't make heroes of us." "Quite the opposite." "No one says everything." "Take your husband:" "Why don't you say he's Christine's publisher?" "You see?" "Transpose the book into images." "Don't try to be clever." "Where's my first payment?" "You said an ambitious film." "I'm still waiting." "So how can you help me?" "With a love story... lasting 2 weeks." "I won't have time." "I have one thing to say:" "Scorn, patience, and good humour." "Who's playing you and Christine?" "I'm hesitating." "Maybe Emmanuelle Beart for Christine, with Auteuil." "If not, Jane Birkin." "I want interesting people, not clones of us both." "Maybe for my part" "Charlotte Gainsbourg," "I like her." "The script is a pretext." "You won't fill cinemas that way." "What if they say no?" "Romane Bohringer maybe." "Good idea?" "So so." "When do I read the script?" "Not yet." "I'm scared." " Christine's read it?" " Yes, but I needed her advice." " Not mine?" " No, it's not that..." "I've written crap." "It's a film about love." "But there's no love in it." "Film me." "I can't." "I should, but I can't." "I'm a monster." "Why do you say that?" "An ogre who needs fresh flesh." "Don't like my pasta?" "It's what I like best." "So what's the problem?" "My films don't feed on pasta." "They feed on what?" "Human blood, I think." "I never called you." "I noticed." "How's the film?" "I'll screw it up." "Because of you." "No, without me you may pull it off." "How's it going with the girl?" "I ended it." "She's married." "That's cruel." "If you love each other, if it's a real encounter, so what if she's married?" "I'm not up to it." "That's for her to say, not you." "It's too late." "Goodbye." "Why the pediatrician?" "That's Brazil." "I'm turning to others for answers." "To one other." "Chosen by me." "To reveal my subject." "To help me write." "Today the guide is the pediatrician." "Why him?" "I don't know yet." "The scene when she kisses him, he'd find it pathetic." "He'd be right." "It is pathetic." "Tell me..." "What?" "I don't know." "Tell me..." "Tell you what?" "Are you alright?" "Something wrong?" "No." "Christine and Pierre talk when they make love." "We never do." "I screwed up love scenes in my films." "I don't know how I'll film them making love." "How do you think they make love?" "What's this film doing to your head?" "Can't I read the script?" "I don't know." "We love each other." "Who's this pediatrician?" "Nothing." "It's just to show you must live what you film." "Were you paid when you filmed the hooker?" "In a way." " What do you want him to do?" " He interests me." "I could make a film about him." "Of course." "Why not?" "Forget the pediatrician." "Fall in love with actors." "No one can complain, it's my job." "They're paid for it." "I asked Daniel Auteuil to play Pierre." "Christine agreed, it was for him." "It's... it's the book that adapts the film." "Right." "Not the film adapting the book." "And then what?" "It begins with me preparing the film..." " Won't it be boring?" " The beginning?" " And then what?" " After that..." "After what?" "It's special." "It's not like Nicole with The Adversary." "Yes, I can see that." "Look, reassure me." " This is a scene." " It's a scene." "He said no." "He didn't understand the film, or belong in it." "He said:" "I know it's tough, like turning down a girl." "Emmanuelle Beart also said no." "Too busy." "Charlotte Gainsbourg said no." "I asked why, she said because." "Jane Birkin doesn't like it, nor does Romane Bohringer, but she might do it for me." "I met Francis Huster." "I've always dreamed of working with him." "I read the book, then I read the script." "I hated the book, not because I'm a man, but because it's a rip-off coming from her, I expected some truth." "Then I read the script." "It's worse." "Even worse." "What is it now?" "A knife, table, the lot." "That's what you should film." "Film that." "There." "Real life." "A guy might be beaten up." "Can you believe it?" "Look at that." "What now?" "The cops, right." "You can film that because it's... the harshness of life, the pain." "Like I was saying, about love... too many people are suffering, killing each other, to get stuck into a love story." "It's not that it's bourgeois because it's rounded off, it's... that!" "There's real stuff to say about someone suffering, destroyed by love." "It's too fiddly." "I think the human truth about a love story set down on blank pages is..." "We shouldn't even realize it's there, as we never realize anything in life." "When I see you, you look like someone deeper, someone more complete..." "There's something unfinished." "10 minutes here, 3 there..." "Then I go:" "Shit, she's watching herself film." "Like with me:" "Shit, he's watching himself act." "Fuck it, let's lay into him, then at least something real will happen." "Interpreting roles, interpreting stuff..." "Theatre is OK as it's all fake... all real, sorry." "The actor really is on stage." "You pay to see him like you pay to see a footballer." "To see him kick the ball." "But a film needs real truth." "Otherwise it doesn't come alive." "You must film, film, shoot film, trash nine tenths of it." "Then suddenly there's a miracle, that asshole has forgotten, he's forgotten, he's not acting, he's real." "It's vital that you find actors who play I, who are themselves." "That's what I think." "But your script bans that sort of acting." "Totally bans it." "It's for interpreting." "I think you should trash that script." "Bin it." "Bin it." "Nowhere to park." "What can I do?" "Fuck this." "What can I do?" "Do you follow me?" "Or not at all?" "Who gives a shit about a girl who gets laid?" "She doesn't have cancer, she doesn't look after her kids, she must be a lousy fuck as her story falls flat." "It doesn't work out with the guy, they screw a bit and they come." "Who gives a shit?" "It's OK in real life." "But is there a film in there?" "Is there a film?" "Really?" "Make your film as it is." "You'll see." "We'll have a laugh." "You won't but we will." "I won't let you film it." "I won't let you." "Because if you do... you'll fuck up, you won't like it." "Even if it makes money." "That's my opinion." "The answer to the first question:" "It took me 43 minutes." "Next question." "We're fucking, right now, film fucking." "She fucks and writes about her fucking." "You must do that too." "Fucking for you is filming." "Film yourself fucking." "Do you understand?" "Or not at all?" "OK, no nervous breakdown?" "Thanks a lot." "Forget Angot's book, forget about all that." "It's irrelevant." "Angot's book doesn't concern you." "For the first time in your life you're in a film that doesn't exist." "It doesn't exist." "You don't have to film it, give yourself a break." "We're only asking you to be a human being, to be lost." "MATERNITY" "Look, isn't that sweet?" "Fuck!" "Call me." "Will you?" "Maurice." "Francis hates the film but he wants to do it, but fast, he only has 8 weeks free." "I'll simplify, shoot in video." "He'll be great, he hasn't done a film for ages, now's the time." "We'll find the actress!" "Of course it's possible!" "We just have to find 70000 euros!" "You can't drop the film now!" "We have the actors!" "Make it the normal way?" "You keep saying we'll never finance it!" "I have an economical solution!" "Wait for what?" "I've been working unpaid for 3 months!" "No producer." "No money." "No more actors." "Nearly no husband." "He's sick of my stuff." "He cuts off the legs and arms." "The head, the thing." " En garde, scum!" " Only touch the body..." "He's a bit hot." "Cheat!" " He's hot." " Call the pediatrician." "I'd risked everything now I was alone." "Like Christine in her book." "This time" "I could feel her emotions." "Hotel room." "She's alone, she's tired, she's come from Montpellier." "She's just written Leaving Town, after writing Incest." "Her daughter Leonore is in Texas." "She's looking for an apartment in Paris." "Soon she meets Pierre-Louis Rozines, a journalist." "She wants to see what he's like." "She writes:" "I felt ready to love." "But I still had to meet the person." "The person." "For me, it has to be him, the one true encounter of my life." "THE ENCOUNTER" "I'm not crazy about Incest." "I know." "I'm a media event." "I read your article." "I loved Leaving Town." "Good." "Really I did." "Good." "She likes him, she fancies him." "But she must find an apartment." "As you see, here we have a loft residence, a New York style loft." "No takers?" "Not for a pricey rabbit hutch." "I'll take it." "So she's living in Paris." "Thinking about her past and her future." "She gazes out." "She's alone, scared of being alone forever." "Listening to the music?" "No." "Thinking about the journalist?" "She doesn't say." "A few days later, after a book program on TV." "She was great, sincere and honest." "And convincing." "Hello, I'm a friend of Jean-Noel Pancrazy." "Excuse me." "Have some champagne." " No thanks." " You have to today!" "To you and the book." "Really." " I was lousy." " Oh, come on." "Well done." "Let's get some fresh air." "It wasn't so forceful but we heard you, we listened to you, there was a wonderful sort of silence." "I don't know how you read like that." "It was really good." "We must talk." "No news from Deneuve..." "I'm coming." "It was really good." "The taxis are sorted." "We're going to eat." "You're next to her." "I'll be downstairs." "Shall we go?" "THE NEXT DAY" "Hello." "Some flowers for you." "An egoist is someone who gives himself gifts." "Mine is seeing you smile now, alone without an audience." "With my love." "She calls him." "He asks her out." "I don't know how she felt." "I can stare into a mirror for hours." "I play sad music, I find myself hideous." "THE FIRST DATE" "She's ready, she's scared stiff, she likes him, she likes his eyes." "I don't think she's hungry." "How do you like Paris life?" "It's awful." "A ghetto." "And I hate the cold." "That surprises me." "No one thinks I'm like I am." "Tell me who you are." "Who are you?" "A premature baby." "I began in an incubator, split up my parents, now I'm alone." "Never lived with a woman?" "Constructing doesn't interest me." "I can't do it." "I go this way." "Another coffee?" "If you like." "And then?" "I don't know." "I must call Christine." "No, I won't." "It's always the same, two people together." "No, it's never the same." "There's fear, embarrassment, awkwardness." "Especially when it's important." "Like this." "My fax doesn't work." "Do you know how faxes work?" "It works." "Page 71." "Then we go to my room." "We don't talk much." "Just looks and smiles." "Constantly." "We hardly speak." "I think it may be him." "It is him, it may be him." "I'm not changing my mind, just changing sentences." "Yes?" "No, nothing..." "And you?" " Nothing..." " No, tell me." "She writes:" "He came over the next day, he said:" "I'm the only Jew who hides in peace time." "He was Jewish, that was erotic too, of course." "The roots were connected, I was right." "But how do you film that?" "With no budget or actors to play it." "I told the producer" "I'd play Christine and my husband Pierre." "We had no choice." "It would be indecent, crazy, far below the book." "But it was the way to adapt it." "He said:" "OK, darling, let's go." "But I didn't dare ask my husband if he'd do it." "I've been thinking." "We must both play in the film." "It will be war." "Don't you want to?" "Oh, come on." "Your characters are always in bed, you can't strip off." "Only the top." "Showing your tits or your ass is the same." "You're right, all or nothing." "Anyway I've got to." "Otherwise they'll say I'm chicken," "I don't take risks." "You disgust me." "Scared?" "Do I have a choice?" "No." "The film." "Or war." "War." "She writes:" "Our problems started on Sunday." "I didn't understand them then but I can explain them now." "I went through it blindly." "The rhythm was wrong." "WAR" "Where are you going?" "I must work." "Have a coffee." "I drink chocolate on Sundays." "Make an exception." "I must read the papers." "I'll go and buy them." "I need a bath first." "You only have a shower." "See you tonight." "What is love?" "You are together, you want to be alone, drink chocolate, escape from the other person." "He's gone, she's there." "Paralysed, incapacitated, waiting." "Of course I identify with her." "LOVE" "I do feel something..." "So it's love." "But what unites them is a mystery for her and for me." "Leonore comes back from Texas." "She meets Pierre." "They decide to live together." "They look for an apartment." "Through here?" "I asked if I could visit her apartment, their apartment." "She said yes." "You think you'll understand, seeing people's homes, but love remains a mystery." "She wanted to show me a photo of her father, but she couldn't find it." "The father." "The importance of the father." "Incest." "What does it mean?" "What can I film?" "17th October '72." "Dear little Christine," "I have time to think of you but not to write." "Please understand, write to me when you feel like it." "I long for your letters." "No one has ever sent me poetry." "You're the first." "I love your poems, they're your heartbeats." "I want to give you a big smile, then I might see your white teeth." "Yes, I see them." "A kiss for your eyes." "Love to mum and write to me." "Daddy" "Why Brazil?" "Because all its richness lies in the future, like yours." "The globe is for you." "I love you with all my heart." "Daddy" "Where is Christine from?" "Where is she going?" "What do I know?" "She quotes Breton:" "Love is always behind us, never before us." "What's behind me?" "I'd rather not look." "I'll start again." "They find an apartment." "They live together." "Living together." "That's my subject." "Daily life, I know all about it." "What are you making?" "My speciality." "Saute of veal." "Like it?" "No." "If someone asked about us, what would you say?" "Monday, I'd been alone for 40 years," "Tuesday, I wasn't alone." "We moved in together, my problems began." "I've had affairs, I lived with someone," "I have a child." "It's not a radical change for me." "Nothing's happening to me." "She lives with a man, she loves him." "Leonore is there but something's wrong." "She's not alone, someone cooks for her, but she's disappointed." "In who?" "Him?" "Love?" "The saute of veal?" "She may not know." "She asked Pierre if he liked being in love." "He said no, and she agreed." "She couldn't handle it." "Something was wrong." "And she couldn't write." "I can't do it!" "How's it going?" "I can't do it." "I have to write an essay on what I want to do." " What did you choose?" " Not a writer." "24 hours a day saying:" "I can't do it!" "I can't!" "No thanks!" "I must be off too." "I'm late." "I can't do it either." "The book resists me." "Their story resists me." "How do I show its complexity?" "I'm not sure I understand it." "All I know is wherever they are, they collide." "Not long after, worn out, they go to the sea." "I can't sleep in 15 cm of bed!" "Page 129." "Maybe I'd made a big mistake through fear of being alone." "Maybe I didn't love the guy" "I'd abandoned myself to." "I no longer feared being alone but I couldn't kid myself." "If he left, maybe I'd realize I loved him." "BOTH ALONE" "A few months later nothing had improved, neither writing nor love." "It was worse." "They go away again." "No good." "Always the past, his past." "His mother, his father." "Page 138." "For him, only solitude was possible." "Permanently stressed." "I'd picked a sick guy." "But I loved him." "I had to be lucid." " Where are you going?" " I don't know." "We're not glued together." "We could go for a walk." "Like slugs." "And snails." "I can't take all this glue." "I'll be downstairs." "We'll go to the sea." "Wait, just 5 minutes." "No, I'll wait downstairs." "Wait here, we'll go down together." "I'm nearly ready!" "We're alone!" "I'm alone, I'm going down alone." "See you later." "I don't want to walk with you." "I came to the sea for you." "To go for walks together." "If this goes on you'll never see me again." "Go away then!" "Go away!" "I can't walk with a guy who can't go downstairs with me as he needs to prove he's alone." "Go, you're free!" "Yes, I'm free!" "Free to take the train!" "Bon voyage!" " I'm going!" " Go!" "Meeting Pierre was a relief." "I said:" "It's love, out of the blue." "Life's surprise, the power of love." "A safety zone from madness." "Not a bit of it." "Two nutters clutching lifebelts." "I write and I've been in analysis for years," "I can stand a lot." "But he saw nothing, he reacted blindly." "He stormed out saying vile things, threatening to go for good." "An hour later he'd forgotten." "They make up, she talks to him, he calms down." "I'm no good at making up." "Never mind." "She writes:" "We're alright, we're happy, we love each other." "Soon after, they go away again." "LOVE AGAIN" "I don't want to." "I don't want to!" "Leave me alone." "You raped me." "You're exaggerating." "Let's go for a walk." "To the harbour?" "I don't want to." "You did, earlier." "I don't now." "What do you want to do?" "Nothing." "Shall we go and eat?" "No." "What's the matter?" "I have nothing to say to you." "What is it now?" "I can't take this." "You're trying to ruin everything." "It's like living with a Nazi!" "The perfect Goebbels assistant!" "As that's what you do." "You ruin our lives!" "You'll end up alone!" "I live with a mental case." "You're pitiful!" "I'm through." "Then it's all over!" "Page 149." "I couldn't move." "I'd had madmen in my life for 30 years, and it would go on." "I'd never be able to hold them off." "Something in me attracted them," "I couldn't deny it." "The first of the madmen was my father, followed by a long list." "I sparked it off." "Goebbels' PA is going out." "You look just like a Nazi." "Look at the hatred in your eyes." "What now?" "Not more of your scenes!" "It's mad, you're going mad." "You always have been!" "Do I shout and get in a state?" "No!" "So stop it!" "You raped me yesterday!" "Stop it!" "Where are you going?" "Away from you!" "You called me a Nazi!" " I'll never forget!" " But you are!" "Page 149." "He'd lost his freedom." "He was the consenting toy, at his age, of his family neurosis, his people's neurosis, the Jewish people." "It was so heavy." "I couldn't move." "I find this story... of Jewishness..." "One has the impression it's the equilibrium of their encounter, and of the book, it becomes the equilibrium of the film." "Why did I retain that?" "I was looking for what united or separated them." "A part of the roots." "Something that steers us towards or against others." "I remember the pediatrician, his name." "I still don't understand." "I must do this film." "I find a love letter." "They're back together again." "Pierre..." "I've looked for you for years." "I'm starting to enjoy finding you." "You can't imagine what I was like a year ago." "You can't." "For 4 days you've seen me in love with you." "It's lovely, but I feel unworthy." "I'm scared you'll go." "Lmagine, if you fall in love with someone else" "I'll die." "I also feel I deserve this joy." "What joy to be on your bike with you, like yesterday." "I don't know what love is, but I love you," "I think." "I love your flesh." "The elasticity of your flesh." "Lts texture." "I can feel it." "Meeting you was undreamed of." "I could write to you for hours." "Why you?" "I don't know." "Tell me." "Tell me what this is." "I love you." "Christine." "I could never say I love you in a film, like Christine does in her book." "I film other people's love as I can't film my own." "Like I can't iron a shirt properly." "I called Christine," "I had to talk to her." "What worries you is not..." "It's the idea of... exposing myself but protecting the others." "It's impossible." "Impossible." "That's the point." "We have nothing to hide." "We can all live without keeping secrets." "I loathe secrets." "You see?" "I see." "I'm the worst person to adapt this book." "Not only do I betray it, but it questions me." "And I'm not a subject for a film." "But I've committed, I can't back out." "There's a recce tomorrow, 8 a.m. Austerlitz station." "It's nothing like it." "No way." "They really don't want to..." "Shooting there would cost 5000 euros, just the transport..." "The book ends in Nancy, the film doesn't." "Too expensive." "I lived there 18 years." "The roots in the roots again, but my roots this time." "Christine writes about her Jewish grandmother." "I want to film the film-maker, obsessed by roots, meeting her own grandmother at Nancy Station." "She's spectacular, of course." "But aging actresses won't play grandmothers." "Anouk Aime said no, Anna Karina too, like to a dog." "I must find an idea." "How do you feel about the station?" "If I keep in the cafe it might pass for Nancy." "I have no choice." "I must find a grandmother." "Describe her again." "Very beautiful, elegant, spectacular." "20, 30, 40 years old..." "All that matters is that she represents the ideal origin." "I see." "Isn't she sublime?" "Champagne, Felicie." "The straw." "Excuse me." "I'm looking for..." "Will you be my grandmother?" "Felicie, thank her, say I'm not the right age." "Go away." "Leave us alone." "You're so beautiful." "Say I'm barely up to taking the dog out, so she mustn't exaggerate." "Don't exaggerate." "Will you be my mother?" "Felicie, give her 10 euros." "No, it's not that." "Will you be my sister?" "No, thank you." "No." "Thank you." "Don't you like me?" "Very pretty." "But I prefer boys." "Let me be your family." "Adopt me." "Felicie, talk to her." "Madame hates families." "Madame likes love, adventure, dancing." "And champagne." "Madame loves champagne." "More bubbles, Felicie!" "It's incredible." "You could have arrived on the Orient Express..." "Fascinating." "Where are you from?" " The suburbs." " Never mind." "It's time, Madame." "We should go." "Forget about me." "She's fantastic." "She can't be from the suburbs." "I didn't understand." "She doesn't want me." "No one wants me." "I can't find a family." "It wouldn't work anyway." "That's not my story." "Not at all." "Hotel room, Nancy." "Christine, you say there's no secret, no shame." "You write everything." "I don't film everything." "There are secrets, my secrets, and my shame." "Maybe your book led me here." "To Nancy, to the heart of shame." "I was 20 during the war." "I worked in a factory." "What sort of factory?" "Textiles." "I was in textiles for ages." "I was scared of the Germans." "Then I realized they weren't ogres." "I wasn't scared any more." "I shined their boots when I worked in the beer palace." "Before the war... you knew some Jewish people?" "Did you know..." "Yes." "There was a little old man." "I say little old man because I was young then." "He used to walk around wearing a yellow star, that's how I knew he was Jewish," "I didn't know any Jews." "But didn't you know any Jewish people before, during or after the war?" "Like I said, just the people on the street." "But afterwards?" "Or didn't you know?" "Yes, we knew." "But we didn't talk openly like I'm talking to you." "We whispered." "How can I explain?" "People were scared of the Germans, I was too." "Did you know about the camps?" "Did I know about the camps?" "Let me think..." "I'm her." "The rest is fake." "Husband, film-maker, reality." "It's crap," "A cover up." "If I was up to the truth, up to adapting this book," "I'd visit the pediatrician, the real one." "I'd go, a married woman with no reason to be there, and I'd film:" "Exposing myself to my husband, moved by another man." "And dragging the pediatrician into something non-professional, intimate and public." "Expose myself as a vampire to film the one real encounter in the film." "Would I say I love his name and the fact he's Jewish?" "Could you fall in love with a Goy?" "With someone completely..." "At my age, in my present situation, yes." "Of course." "I could." "Because I'm old enough..." "And I've already..." "I could, yes." "Today, yes." "Does being Jewish determine your relationships?" "With the world, with others?" "I think it defines me," "I define myself by my Jewishness but it doesn't affect my relationships with others." "My name is Ha:i:m Cohen." "So wherever I go..." "I'm labelled Jewish." "So I think many people I meet situate me, consciously or not, in relationship to my origin and my name... and also... something else..." "What do Jews have in common?" "They question destiny." "So in a love relationship, is feeling Jewish an added link?" "Falling in love is a very bad expression." "We don't fall in love." "We love." "Falling in love is..." "We love." "I think that's your question:" "What makes us love?" "If I love someone I can love them after the separation." "But falling in love implies you love them less..." "Not for me." "Then how do you know?" "You can cut." "Like in films!" "I did this adaptation to film two people, the grandmother and the pediatrician." "Not Jews necessarily, foreigners." "Their faces show me what unites and separates." "Where we're from, where we're going." "That's what interests me." "Not adapting the book, or filming my life." "I don't adapt." "I don't adapt myself." "She wants to stop." "She wants to stop." "She wants to stop filming!" "It's to do with her grandmother." "She said she felt awful, she was stopping the film." "She can't do that!" "Who does she think she is?" "I'm the one who stops the film." "Not her." "Find her." "Immediately." "Yes, but her mobile's off, her parents and her husband have no news." "Nor has Christine Angot." "She's really vanished." "She's vanished." "Christine doesn't know where she is." "Nor does the husband." "Her husband!" "What do we do?" "Go and look for her." "Right?" "I already have." "Not hard enough." "Go on!" "Go on, kid..." "Paul, you must find your wife." "It's cost me 10 million." "You're married to her." "I think you better leave." "If that's how you feel," "I'll find someone else to finish the film." "I'm sure Benoit Jacquot, Desplechin, or my friend Corneau would jump at it." "Tell Laetitia she's not Van Gogh." "Or to send me her ear, as compensation." "Strange to see this station 20 years later, nothing's changed." "That vampire stuff is crap." "I don't live so I can film it." "I film because I can't live." "That's how it is." "Subtitles by Charlotte Trench" "Processed by B.B. COM" " Paris"