Abdellatif Kechiche: interview

Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche discusses his sprawling new family drama 'Couscous' with Time Out

You win lots of awards with your films. Do they mean any thing to you?
'My films are more for cinéastes than the public at large. They are not blockbusters, and the awards I get are given out by people in the profession. For a director, what counts is to have as many people see my film as possible. It’s okay, because I have a certain audience, but on the other hand, this is, as I said before, not a blockbuster, it’s not going to be attracting hordes of people.'

Do the awards help you financially to make other films?
'There were no positive financial repercussions from the awards I received. Very few people went to see my first film "La Faute à Voltaire", so that made it difficult to get money for the second, "L’Esquive". For this film, the financing was already in place before I received all the awards, so that didn’t have any effect either.'

Do you always work with the same enthusiasm despite encountering the same problems?
'It’s true. I have to admit that there is a sense of failure. I get a lot of good reviews from the critics and certain members of the public, but I can’t help but feel that the subjects I deal with lead to problems. Maybe because they’re so marginal? I’m always, so to speak, on the razor’s edge. I can never predict how my films will be received and it’s becoming very difficult. I think I’m going to wait a while before I make another film.'

You get the sense from the film that you have a great compassion for the community where it is set. How did you research the script, as it feels very naturalistic and truthful?
'This is actually my own background and although the film is fictional, I based it on people that I knew during my childhood. I wanted to show this community because I felt it was under-represented in France. There are not enough films about these people and I felt that I had the duty and the right to look into this community and also to try and get wider audiences to love them in the way that I do.'

The film has a negative view of bureaucracy, both in the work place and in the family.
'Well, I think it’s only natural to have a negative attitude towards bureaucracy. Anyone who has had to deal with civil servants or government workers have probably been in the position that I showed in the film. It’s a kind of metaphor for the problems I had in finding financing for the films. You get in to these almost surreal situations. It’s quite bizarre.'

Your film uses lots of close-ups of faces. How do you work with actors?
'You can get anything out of actors by being tough and bossing them about, but I think you can only work in a spirit of confidence and mutual understanding if you want the best, most naturalistic results. Even before we started shooting, I tried to get all the actors to meet up with each other. Still, there is a lot of give and take. They have to adjust to my personality and I have to adjust to theirs.'

Would you describe your style as social realist?
'It’s my duty to show people from my own community because if they’re shown at all, it’s usually as a caricature with tough relationships with society or between generations. I thought it was important to show how these people actually are. I don’t consider my films to be realist or naturalistic as they have more of an artistic aspect to them: there’s music, there’s dance, there’s poetry and there’s theatre. So no, I would not call my films social realist.'

The film is divided into two parts. The first there’s lots of discussion and in the second there’s more action and drama. How did you decide upon this structure?
'I wouldn’t talk about parts, but more about blocks of the film. My artistic approach takes a normal narrative, but with more focus on the personal side of things. This is where equilibrium is hard to find. In many ways, I do not go along with the "rules" of cinema, and I know this can upset people watching the film because it’s not the usual framework.'

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