Can you tell us about how you met Fadhel Messaoudi? Did the idea of making a film with him come about after his accident?
I met Fadhel in 2019, on Music Day. Was it a coincidence? It was on the set of Jilani Saadi’s film (the smuggler with glasses in “La Renaissance”). Fadhel was playing the lead role, while I was working as an assistant director and prop master. After that wonderful experience, we stayed in touch. Unfortunately, later that same year, on December 16, he was struck by a car. Filming began just a few days after the accident.
Fadhel’s doppelgänger, who has returned from the dead, is Abu Huraira, the eponymous character of a novel by Mahmoud Messadi. Who is he? Why did you choose this character?
“Thus Spoke Abu Huraira” by Mahmoud el Messadi is, above all, an encounter with a reader who embodies the traits of a Don Quixote. It is also the story of a departure at dawn into the unknown, which undoubtedly represents the journey we undertake when we migrate somewhere. Fadhel, for his part, is in a way a Don Quixote of life. This book left a mark on his youth, as highlighted by the excerpt we quote in the film. It was his bedside book.
This is how the idea of linking the book’s character to the film’s subjective point of view emerged. In fact, it is Fadhel himself who names his double Abu Huraira at the beginning of the film. However, this is not a carbon copy of the book. The man in the helmet is a distinct entity, both through Fadhel’s story and the one I imagined for him.
The film takes the form of a video game, both playful and dreamlike. You represent the afterlife, then put on a virtual reality headset to take on the role of Abu Huraira. Could you tell us more about this approach and how it influenced your relationship with Fadhel and the way you filmed?
In reality, everything blends together to form a whole. The idea of making a film using a virtual reality headset is a project that’s part of a thesis I’m working on at the University of Paris 8, which I started a few months before Fadhel’s accident. At the time, I was deeply immersed in research on quantum physics, and I found in the idea of Schrödinger’s cat a way to express, through this astral space where Fadhel finds himself at the beginning of the film, this state of superposition, neither dead nor alive. He is offered the chance to return to Earth because he still has a mission to fulfill, and the helmet is the instrument that makes this return possible.
He also acts as my camera. Pretty soon, I had to come up with a character who observes and interacts with his surroundings: he has gloves, a controller for picking up objects, and he’s wearing a red-striped sweater I picked up on the set of Jilani… Before long, he also needed an oud, a phone, and so on. It’s strange to film with a helmet on your head; you can pick up objects, move differently, it’s a whole different filming process. We had to improvise the script on the spot, adapt to what was happening, but always arrive the next day with three or four ideas for how the story might unfold. This aspect of video games forced us to deal with real-life events while considering several possible scenarios. For example, going to get the musical instrument, returning to the room, and then opening up other hidden spaces scattered throughout the film. With COVID, we had to be even more inventive.
At first, I know it must have seemed strange to Fadhel to see me filming with a virtual reality headset and explaining that I was playing his double. I also had him wear the headset so I could see his reflection in the mirror. We even filmed this on the subway—it was an incredible experience. Fadhel did a great job, and I’m grateful to him for those shots; he’s a real pro in front of the camera…
You appear at the end of the film, having taken off your helmet, and speak as a filmmaker, no longer as a character, in a conversation with Fadhel. Why did you make that choice?
Film is a malleable medium; that is to say, I can shape it according to its nature, twisting and turning it until it takes its final form. At first, I had no intention of appearing in the film. I had Fadhel wear the helmet, and whenever a reflection or a mirror appeared, I concealed my hands with light-up gloves. During editing, I altered my voice so it couldn’t be recognized. My goal was to tell the story of Fadhel and his double returning from a parallel world, even though it was obvious there was someone behind the camera.
It was during editing that the idea of appearing in the film came to me, I’d even say right at the very end of the process. It stemmed from the letter that Abou H finds midway through the film, tucked between two pages of M.M.’s book. The letter is fictional, but it still contains a grain of truth. Initially, I wanted Fadhel to write and then read this letter, but we never managed to pull it off. It just didn’t work; the words wouldn’t come out; we hit a wall. However, I was committed to this sequence, and at times we built the narrative around this letter. So I started thinking about other approaches, other possibilities. It was clear that I couldn’t write it in Fadhel’s place, so I blended our two stories, the little things we share regarding immigration and exile: dreams, work, encounters with the system (especially the prefecture), the red tape of that bureaucracy, and above all, the threat of deportation, etc.
Indeed, “La Renaissance” also explores a facet of the history of Tunisian immigration to France marked by bureaucratic absurdities and obstacles to building a life there.
Yes. That’s why Abou H is a distinct entity in this interweaving of voices, faces, and stories. From that point on, my own voice became Abou H’s, and through him, the voice of all exiles. Similarly, Fadhel is the face, the image, the very embodiment of these exiled bodies. We talked about personal things, yet things shared by many people; we navigated between the intimate and the collective throughout the film. Fadhel’s accident and his condition at the beginning of the film, with a battered body and his legs and arms in casts, his cry of pain and suffering, also reflect this exile and this aspect of immigration history. Ultimately, my appearance at the end of the film is the result of all these things. When Fadhel takes off his helmet, we break the fourth wall; we open up another dimension. When he decides to turn back toward the screen so I can put the helmet back on him, there is no longer any point in returning to the persona and fiction of Abou H; the film is drawing to a close. I edited this sequence at the very end of the process and had forgotten my reaction at the time. Watching it again, I realized why I wanted to make this film: to pay tribute to Fadhel, to his journey, to his dedication. I hope I succeeded in doing so, even if only a little. I can’t thank him enough for agreeing to this cinematic adventure, and I hope it marks the beginning of a new chapter.
Interview by Louise Martin Papasian
