BATTLE SCARS
FRANTz François Ozon’s latest is a wartime romance – with a twist.
François Ozon is not so keen on dubbing his latest movie, Frantz, a melodrama. “I would call it a sentimental, emotional thriller because it plays with a confusion of feelings.” The prolific French director also favours the German term ‘bildungsroman’ – the literary genre that studies a character’s coming-of-age – to describe this tale of Anna (Paula Beer), a German mourning the loss of her fiancé Frantz during WW1.
Set in rural Germany in 1919, the story originally comes from a play by Maurice Rostand, which already proved the inspiration for Ernest Lubitsch’s lesser-known 1932 work Broken Lullaby. A fan of the play, Ozon was initially discouraged when he discovered the Lubitsch version, but then he watched it. “Of course, Lubitsch couldn’t know that there would be another World War. It was a bit idealistic, very pacifist.”
While Lubitsch’s film is from the male perspective, Ozon switched it around – showing events from Anna’s viewpoint after she spies a mysterious stranger, Adrien (Pierre Niney), placing flowers on Frantz’s grave. With Adrien claiming he was friends with Frantz, the truth is more damaging. “I wanted to talk about how secrets and lies in dramatic times, in the period of wars, helped people survive,” says Ozon. “It’s essentially a metaphor for our need and desire for fiction, and therefore for films.”
Shot in black-and-white 35mm (with impressionistic flashes of colour), Ozon admits he was influenced by a trio of movies – Roman Polanski’s Tess, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon. “The period is different but what I loved about these three films is the faithful historical reconstruction,” he says, noting he steered his costume designer, set designer and locations scout to watch these classics. Other recent films such as Hacksaw
Ridge (via Hugo Weaving’s character) have also explored the scars of WW1. “They copy me!” jokes Ozon. But he believes his film resonates because of the current climate. “You feel in Europe there is an extreme tension,” he says. “We’re afraid of the future for the first time in a long time.” ETA | 12 MAY FRANTZ OPENS NEXT MONTH.