Interview with Ismaël Ferroukhi (Director)
How did you get the idea for Le Grand Voyage? Is it related to any personal experience?
I have had this project in mind for ten years now. As it happens, my father made this car journey when I was only a kid and I dreamt about this slightly crazy expedition. I thought that one day I would have to tell this extravagant adventure.
What was it that appealed to you in this story?
This trip to Mecca was an ideal opportunity to put two characters in a car that - though father and son - are the total opposite of each other. It was also an opportunity to force them to communicate. In every day life, this confrontation would not have been possible since they would spend most of the time avoiding one another. In a journey situation the two characters can no longer avoid each other - they cannot escape the confrontation. They can't cheat anymore.
What is more, I wanted to tell a real life story about two Muslim protagonists without conveying clichés about a community that is both pacifist and tolerant at heart. I really wanted to "re-humanize" a community whose reputation is smeared by an extreme minority using religion for political ends.
Both your characters are in an unstable situation as regards the so-called "integration": Réda is stuck between his roots and his French identity, and the father gives the impression of not being able to master the language.
Absolutely. For Réda integration means above all the rejection of his roots, or at least keeping his distance from them. For the father, things are quite different. He speaks French perfectly, but refuses to communicate in this language due to his son's behaviour. By refusing to speak French the father hopes to install a system that will bring Réda back to him, making up for an obvious lack in his culture.
What does the traditional Mecca pilgrimage mean to you?
For me the pilgrimage does not come down to a mere "pilgrimage to Mecca": the pilgrimage starts the day you leave your house and undertake the journey. The latter is an integral part of the pilgrimage. When the father explains why he has chosen to drive there, we understand that it is essential for him to physically feel the difficulties related to the trip. That is the outcome of his faith. Only a car journey - where every second counts - can allow him to accomplish his inner journey.
Even though the film could be described as a road-movie, it is more about the conversations behind closed doors in changing places.
In my opinion, there are two journeys. First there is the inner journey exploring the relationship between the two characters. Then there is the "physical" journey, which is a real adventure, strewn with mishaps and delays - these very mishaps are actually what bring Réda and his father closer together. It is this physical journey that allows the inner one to progress.
This expedition is also an initiatory journey for both father and son. At the end the father admits "I learnt a lot form that journey" to which the son replies "me too."
Both characters learn a lot. I did not want to give the impression that only Réda discovers his own culture. In my opinion, father and son are like two points that end up meeting. It is therefore as much of an initiatory journey for Réda as it is for his father. Moreover the father's progression is an integral part of the pilgrimage. Beyond that I wanted I also wanted to address both the young people from immigrant descent and older Muslims, that have arrived in France a while ago.
You give very little information, whether social or psychological about the characters, which seems to isolate them even more.
I wanted to break loose from any kind of guideline, get rid of anything that could connect the characters to a specific context, so that the movie could be as universal as possible. We can however assume that the father is retired, coming from a working class background - you can actually hear him tell the other pilgrims that he has been in France for thirty years. But these are only scraps of information that do not tie the characters to a precise context. I want them to be considered above all like two human beings confronting the father/son relationship, and facing a spiritual conflict. I did not want their Moroccan or Muslim origins to take over the rest.
You never pass judgement on the characters: everyone behaves according to their own motivation, without you casting any moral light on them.
I certainly did not want to take any side. They both have a defendable position. I made sure I did not pass judgement on their behaviour and I notably made sure that one shot would not say more than another. Throughout the movie I tried to keep the characters at a distance.
How do you see the character of Mustapha? One can't help but feel that he plays a mediator role between the father and the son.
He enters the picture at a moment when Réda and his father have just started getting closer to each other, and he breaks that newly gained privacy. Yet curiously he ends up having a positive influence on their relationship. Mustapha is a confused character, lost somewhere between two cultures, somehow like Réda. When he first meets the two protagonists, he clings to them because he feels close to them - he too has lived in France for a long time - and feels like he found his family again.
What part is the old woman that they meet by the road, meant to play?
She is a ghostly, almost spectral apparition. For me she embodies a permanent threat that is looming on this journey. She is also part of that journey. There is a surreal side to her that makes her close to the father's spiritual world. He actually understands her while Réda thinks she is a crazy witch.
When father and son find themselves in the Middle East the balance in their relationship changes: the father knows the linguistic codes, while the son is completely lost.
Réda can no longer tell his father "you can't read!" as he used to! He is now the one to be left out, all the more so that he is not on a pilgrimage: he discovers a world he knows nothing about, while his father is completely at ease.
The dramatic structure is very pure: you often resort to ellipses, which blur the perception of geographic borders and the passing of time.
I wanted to distance myself from the contemplative attitude related to the journey and really focus on the two characters: their inner evolution was much more interesting for me than their geographic one. I wanted to show that the real outcome of the journey was when Réda's respect for his father turned into love, regardless of where they were located or at which stage of the journey they stood. Even if I had worked really hard on checking the locations in all the countries where we were shooting. In fact I granted a lot of importance to the locations before we started the movie and when I had all the setting elements in hand, I wanted to get rid of them and avoid aesthetic temptation at all cost.
What do you have to say about the soundtrack?
I wanted to find someone who would really want to work on that movie in spite of the lack of money. When composer Fowzi Guerdjou saw the film, he was very moved by the story and felt like working for us. From then on we talked a lot, as I absolutely wanted him to compose a real soundtrack. In fact Fowzi and I understood each other very quickly and he managed to write a score that was at one with the pictures, but would not take them over. The funniest thing is that the main theme came to him spontaneously and all at once - which matched my own perception of that movie: instinctive, never too intellectual.
How did you choose the actors?
When I started writing the script, about six years ago, Cedric Kahn told me about Nicolas Cazalé - whom he had auditioned for Roberto Succo - Cédric said he corresponded perfectly to Réda. I watched the trial Nicolas had done for the movie and realized that Cédric was completely right! But as it took me five years to bring the movie together, I was worried that as he grew older, he would not correspond to the character anymore. I organized a casting - though deep down I knew the part was Nicolas'. Besides, as soon as I saw him again, I just knew for a fact that he had to play Réda. As for the father, I started looking for a actor in France, but I was then worried I could yield to the caricature of the Arab father who has been in France for a long time. When I met Mohamed Majd in Morocco, he obviously was the character. The two actors and myself then formed a united trio that literally carried the film.
Is it the first time a film is shot in Mecca?
Yes indeed. On top of that we shot during the pilgrimage! But it proved to be extremely tricky as the authorization we had obtained from the Saudi Arabian Embassy was not worth a thing once we got there. The local authorities are used to television crews that shoot standard pictures in a very short time, and not to a cinema crew that will shoot the same scene two or three times.
Did face any other difficulties?
In Serbia for example we had to respect the curfew related to the Primes Minister's assassination. In the Middle East, the Iraq war had just started. And in Turkey we really had a hard time trying to get authorization to shoot inside the Blue Mosque or at the Bulgarian border. Luckily our Turkish producers were standing and fighting by our side. I felt like we were lucky to get away with it every time. It only reinforced our determination though. We also witnessed some miracles. For example we were meant to shoot a snow scene in Bulgaria. As I knew it had not snowed there at all I rewrote the scene, changing the snow into rain. On the very same night of our arrival in Bulgaria it started snowing really hard and the following morning the landscape was completely immaculate, covered in two meters of snow! We could then shoot the scene exactly as I had imagined it.
What was your reaction when you received the prize for best film début in Venice?
It was both a magic and moving moment. When you receive such a prestigious prize after five years of struggle to bring a film together you can only be overwhelmed with joy! This prize filled me with a lot of hope.
Was it totally unexpected?
Yes it was. After the screening of the film at Venice, and the warm welcome it received, I went back to Paris. Then when they called me back the day before the award, for a while I could not believe it! It really was magic. The night before the award ceremony I was the happiest of men. I wanted to share the prize with the whole team behind the movie and particularly Nicolas Cazalé and Mohamed Majd.
Interview with Nicolas Cazalé (who plays Reda)
In a few words, how would you describe the movie?
To me it is essentially about a father and son who have become distant, and because they find themselves locked within two square meters for a couple of weeks, they cannot do anything but get closer. It is a deeply human movie addressing everyone.
Do you identify with Réda?
I think the movie deals with the father/son relationship in a universal way, not only in an Arab or Muslim context. I think what Ismaël Ferroukhi is so good at showing is that there always comes a point where you have to settle accounts - indeed by not saying things you can create misunderstandings that may have disastrous consequences. So I completely relate to the confrontation with the father as I see it as an essential step in enabling you to go forward and find your own way.
Did your vision of the character change between the moment you read the scenario and the end of the shooting?
No it did not and that is what is marvellous. As soon as I finished reading the script I started crying without knowing what had moved me so much and this feeling was still there, intact, during the shooting. The emotion is found more in the silences than in the dialogues, that is what I found most disturbing, but that is also the beauty of it.
Do you understand the father's attitude towards his son?
They are in conflict because neither one is ready to understand the other: on the one hand Réda does not understand why the journey means so much to his dad and on the other the father makes no effort to try and understand his son who, though of Arab descent, was born in France and lives amongst French people.
You and Mohamed Majd were enclosed in a car for most of the film. Did you find it difficult?
Had I not got on so well with Mohamed, I think it would have been very hard. In fact we already knew each other as we had worked together on Gaël Morel's Les Chemins de l'Oued, so we took advantage of these long moments together to strengthen our friendship. We discovered more about each other and I feel like I have learnt a lot from him.
Had you ever personally experienced such cultural differences and conflict of generation?
In a sense I had. I am a country boy and when I found myself in Paris, for the love of this job, I really felt uprooted, far away from my usual surroundings. Also, my grand mother is Algerian.
How does Ismaël Ferroukhi work?
He is someone who can rapidly adapt to the hardest situations. Above all he works with his heart, without any calculation or premeditation. He fills us, the actors, with emotion and asks us to pass that through the camera. We did not even have to spend hours discussing the characters' psychology. The emotion he wanted to convey through me was so powerful that I could feel it without him having to tell me about it. Between Mohamed, Ismaël and I words were barely needed. At the end of the shoot I said to myself that the film had allowed me to make an actor's dream come true and that my career could almost stop there.
Is there a specific memory you want to keep from the shoot?
One night Ismaël wanted to shoot a moon crescent in the sky. As it happened it was a full moon that night. Yet as he was about to shoot, a cloud came out and drew a wonderful crescent shape on the moon: it was magic!
How did you feel among the Mecca pilgrims?
I could feel both an extraordinary energy and love, as if I could really hear Islam's heart beat. You realize that this religion is made of love and care for the others. I am happy I took part in this movie because it shows Islam in a way that has nothing to do with the image the media convey.
Did you find out things you did not know about Islam?
Absolutely. Reading the Koran I notably realized that Islam is a very federative religion: the human being is the centre of things and care for the others is essential. It teaches love and not hatred as is too often heard. The texts say that if one is hurt, one can take revenge, but it is even better if one can forgive.
Interview with Mohamed Majd (Who plays Reda's father)
How did you meet Ismaël Ferroukhi?
I met Ismaël thanks to producer Humbert Balsan. We got on straight away and I was very moved by the story of this old man who has always dreamt to do this pilgrimage to Mecca. Besides I was happy to hear that Nicolas Cazalé would play Réda as we had worked together on Gaël Morel's Les Chemins de l'Oued and we had got on very well too.
How did you live this extra-ordinary shooting?
To me it was a real adventure. Travelling through countries like Croatia, Serbia or Turkey was a memorable experience. Each country left me with unfading memories.
What do you think of the son's behaviour towards his dad?
I think the son is at a stage in his life where he needs to rebel in order to find out who he really is. This car journey with his dad gives him this opportunity. As for the father he comes from an ancestral culture and can only clash with a son who does not understand him. That explains the rebellion.
Interviews courtesy of Parasol Pecadillo |
