DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

Taro

Short film of 17'

 

Last January’s tragedy in Charlie Hebdo seems to have made the political class realize that hope can come from culture, freedom and education. What is left of this spirit now? How will the youth of our “blue like an orange” planet - quoting Paul Eluard - perceive its mission to perpetuate a message of peace and love? Will the young generation be able to develop a critical sense and invent its own destiny? Will citizens be able to bet on culture rather than ignorance, future rather than immobility, sharing rather than keeping? “Becoming who I am”, is it still possible in a world where people flee their own responsibilities, where we “consume” the Other? I want to believe in it, because I believe in Mankind, in its infinite resources. 

 

Over 3 years ago, I imagined “Taro”, a young and timeless character, an 18-year-old boy who comes from far away. He comes from Penjab, but could have come from anywhere. He is a stranger, an alien who has to live in a world where he doesn’t belong in the first place – but where he feels at home somehow. Taro is an ideal being. We all have inside ourselves a heroic “Taro” and a shy, vulnerable “Marc” looking for his own self.

 

Remus and Romulus thrown in the waves of Tiber, Moses saved from the sea, Zeus threatened to be eaten by his father Cronus, Little Tom Thumb abandoned in the woods… Myths, religions and fairy tales have always set the scene for children in danger who, after having lived in fear and resignation, overcame thousands of obstacles until the day they became heroes. These legendary characters perfectly symbolise the Inner Child, a concept that has gotten so popular in the American psychology these last twenty years. As adults, we have abandoned and silenced our “inner child”… To recognize him and to set him free is to recognize and set free our profound nature, our creative potential, our spontaneity, and finally, our own heroic nature.

 

My desire to make this movie comes from my deep and intimate bond with my inner child, with my adolescence, this period full of experiments that I never really left. I would like, through Taro, to ask adults not to forget their “inner child”, and to ask teenagers to resist social conventions by living freely.

  

The movie is also based on the relationship between art and beauty, between love and death. It's a story about sexuality. In a society where homophobia is still strongly rooted, Taro is a brave character: in spite of his young age, he undertakes his differences and pushes everyone to resist social conventions and assume their singularity. 

 

With a lot of humour (“All men are bisexual, Freud is the one who said it”, he says to Marc), Taro pushes his mate to reach his true self. Thus, Taro is an initiatory road-movie dealing with coming-of-age issues, self-acceptance and Freedom with a big “F”.

  

The filmmaking will insist on the “Caravaggesque” side of Taro by using multiple close-ups with a pronounced clarity/obscurity contrast. This way of filming will emphasize the strange beauty of the squat, a place where all transgressions are possible – like a video game.

 

The sadomasochistic scene in the squat's boiler room between Taro and Camille is a metaphor of the violent way teenagers are confronted to adult life, in a society that tends to be more and more aggressive. 

 

The black & white format will give the film a timeless and universal shape. It is also a metaphor of the Ying/Yang concept. The Ying and the Yang represent the man/woman duality, among various things. The film aims at showing that it is possible to overcome this genre division.

 

Taro will be shot in 2:4 scope mode. Quoting our director of photography Philippe Brelot, “this film is about a teenager opening himself to the world, so this opening should be as wide as possible”. I think that using the whole width of the screen is the best way to show and make people feel Marc’s transformation.

 

We want to shoot handheld, in order to immerse more easily in this "squat" where dangerous worlds telescope each other. Concerning the pacing, we will adopt a jerky, nearly hypnotic rhythm in the "squat" scene. Then, as to create an opposition, the pace will be slower in the beach scene, shot on the Touquet's dunes, which is more contemplative and bare.

 

Apart from the church, we will shoot in three types of decors:

 

• The road (first in Paris and then in the country)

I intend to worship Paris’ historical, cultural and architectural heritage. I will show the fine sculptures – cherubs, fishes and candelabra - by Henri Désiré Gauquié on the Alexander III bridge while Taro and Marc cross it. The little angels announce the church scene.

 

• " La Passerelle" in Bagneux, a collective gathering various associations and artists, who will nourish the baroque universe of Taro,

 

• The dunes of Normandy where the two friends are finally reconciled and go towards the sea, opening themselves to all sorts of possibilities.

 

My main references are:

 

- The Naked Island, by Kaneto Shindō, a movie without dialogues where everything is said in the staging’s beautiful rhythm and range,

 

- Gummo by Harmony Korine, in which one can feel real poetry, 

 

- The Smell of Us by Larry Clark for the teenage universes of the squat,

 

- A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick, for the violence in the squat.

 

- Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom”, last cult film by Pier Paolo Pasolini, for the sadomasochistic relation between Camille and Taro,

 

- And at last Death in Venice, by Luchino Visconti, inspired by a novel Thomas Mann novel relating an ethereal love. I was overwhelmed by the evocative power of the characters’ gazes in this film.