During the ninth edition of the Saint-Jean-de-Luz Festival, we met Guillaume Gouix, who signs his first feature film as a director with “Amore Mio”. An extremely moving drama that experienced intense filming, as its director explained to us.
Amore Mio : a road movie marked by mourning
With the death of his friend Raphaël (Felix Maritaud), Lola (Heaven Alysson) prefers not to go to his own funeral to avoid sympathy from others. She decides to go to Italy with her sister Margaux (Elodie Bouchez) and his son Gaspard (Viggo Ferreira Redier).
Beginner like a road movie, Amore Mio I remember MEN e John Cassavetes in his own way reject self-pity in mourning, to try to live and fight sadness. Alysson Paradis and Elodie Bouchez are at the heart of an exciting reunion, which Guillaume Gouix movies up close, through a 1.33 format.
At the time of the ninth edition of the Saint-Jean-de-Luz Festivalwe met the director, who signs his first feature film. Guillaume Gouix told us about the origins of this touching drama, the intense filming that served the energy of the film and the fact that the journey of Lola, Margaux and Gaspard was brutally interrupted.
Meeting Guillaume Gouix
How was he born? Amore Mio ?
Guillaume Gouix: wanted tell about characters who don’t do what is expected of them. I feel like mourning is a precise part of that, where people expect something from us, where we almost have a role to play as the perfect widow or the perfect dead. So I wanted to tell someone who says “shit”, who lives it differently. As a viewer, I’ve always liked the characters who screw up at the boss’s desk, the ones who have the courage to listen to themselves. I think there is something nice as a spectator when I see characters slamming doors and saying to themselves: “I will live as I see fit”. The film started from this.
Lola’s reaction in the movie made me think of the characters fromMEN, who lose their best friend. There is this common point of spontaneity between the two films, of movement. To transcribe this feeling, did you want to shoot the film chronologically?
Guillaume Gouix: It’s funny that… We didn’t shoot the movie completely chronologically because we couldn’t, but when we could we did. In any case, really, we tried to give them (Alysson Paradis and Elodie Bouchez, editor’s note) a lot of freedom, even the young actor (Viggo Ferreira-Redier, editor’s note). We had specific aesthetic wishes, but we wanted the film to be lively, to have accidents, to laugh at them, that they move together… John Cassavetes, he’s the king of that. He’s not a conscious role model, but he’s a director I grew up with as a viewer.
The shooting has been quite intense…
Guillaume Gouix: We shot for 26 days. It was a pretty intense film, but it was the urgency that was needed to make it, I think. In any case, I felt good in that energy, it was a small team, a warrior movie. (smile) I think it became a kind of quality to the film rather than a limitation.
Choosing the 1.33 format, sticking to the characters, are these things you had in mind when writing?
Guillaume Gouix: Not from the script, it came out during the discussions with the cinematographer (Noah Bacheditor’s note), when I described my desire to never film the set, contrary to what is expected of a road moviefrom they always feel the journey on their faces, in their sweat, in their mood and that after her it spins without making a postcard. 1.33 made it possible to close them, to be near them.
When did Alysson Paradis and Élodie Bouchez join the project?
Guillaume Gouix: Alysson, since the beginning of writing. I wanted an actress with a rock’n’roll temperament, a mix of femininity and bad boy, which I see in her because we have a special relationship in life. Élodie also arrived very quickly. I think she is a great actress. They balanced each other well, they have the same big smile and then it was something obvious when they met.
The film begins as one road moviewhich he interrupts on the way.
Guillaume Gouix: This, came to writing, the idea of stopping. What was important at that point in the film was the dizzying return to everyday life. How long we go, we go… But there Lola finds herself with her son, so maybe her future life will be like this and she doesn’t want to face it, she wants to move on. The somewhat radical stop was to bring it, a kind of giddiness to say to oneself: “This is it, we will have to assume.”
Is there a moment in the film that you remember more than others?
Guillaume Gouix: There’s a moment in the movie that always moves me, it’s when Margaux says to Lola, “You were good, you pissed me off. You hurt me.” That moment, when they say something that can only be said between brother and sister, something very raw, very violent, but at the same time said with love. The way they play it really affects me.
Amore Mio is to be discovered in the cinema from February 1, 2023.