#viennale

People queue up as early as 5 am on the first day they release the tickets. Personally, I haven’t done it and I probably won’t do it. The earliest I’ve ever lined up is at 11 am, an hour after they open the ticket counters. But that’s the groovy thing bc I never feel as if I’ve wasted time enmeshed with these people sitting on the stairs, who do not know each other, carrying lists of films written on their notebooks or boldfaced from the festival brochures. Reminds me of that particular line from an Oasis song : “All my people right here, right now/D’you know what I mean?” Yes, that kind of heightened emotion! I have my packed lunch and my tea and chips with me as I wait for my turn. I could buy online but it is a different experience purchasing your tickets in person.

Day 1: It’s never over, Jeff Buckley

- executive-produced by Brad Pitt, who wanted to make a biopic of Buckley with him portraying the artist. Jeff’s mom said no but she agreed to open up her son’s legacy in order to shed light on the musician. He accidentally drowned in 1997. He was only 30 years old and set to work on the second album, which became “My Sweetheart the Drunk.”

- I was probably waiting for Elisabeth Fraser to appear, but it was a good thing that she didn’t nor her name mentioned. Everyone feasted on their affair when their collab song was leaked in the early 2000s.

- Joan Wasser, ex-Dambuilders and Jeff’s former lover, admitted that when Jeff told her that he was “manic depressive” she didn’t have any idea what that was and thought of a Jimi Hendrix song.

- he laboriously tried to avoid his father’s shadow from his own work, but in the end people couldn’t help comparing them.

- he and his mother Mary Guibert learned to grow together. Mary was 17, a young girl, when she had Jeff. She learned to be a woman. But Jeff, he still needed time to grow as a man.

- when the film came to the part of his death, I heard sighs and sniffles from the audience. It was a strange feeling of sadness. As if you were there too experiencing this loss.

- I cried at the theater. It was cathartic.

it was a spectacular film. the storytelling, the sound execution, the unspoken emotions, the cinematography and the authenticity of the crew

go watch it and take it all in when it comes out. there is so much to take in

Translated interview

Viennale Star Adèle Haenel: ‘Equality is sexy’

Wolfgang Huber-Lang/APA, in: Salzburger Nachrichten, 25th of October 2019

Adèle Haenel (30, Paris), who is a protagonist in the opening film ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’, was the star guest at yesterday’s Viennale. She is also starring in Pierre Salvadori’s comedy ‘The Trouble with You’, which will be released in cinemas [T: across Austria] from the 8th of November. The talk about film, theatre, lies and clichés alternates between German, English and French.

Additions or clarifications for translating purposes are denoted as [T: …].

Interviewer: Ms Haenel, the opening of the Viennale, which was dominated by women, seems to have been the perfect environment for your film?

Adèle Haenel: Indeed, I actually hadn’t noticed: There were really just women, who held speeches. That’s not often the case. Super! It was a really lovely atmosphere. The audience apparently liked the film [T: … they didn’t like it, they loved it 😜]. I don’t like red carpet events too much, but it was quite charming here, it is a festival for the public and people even dress up for this evening.

I: In ‘Portrait’, men only play tiny secondary roles. Is the film also making a political statement? There is also a heated debate about gender equality in the film business.

AH: It is a good experience that men are not centre stage for once. The film centres around lesbian lovers and is not making a political statement at first glance. But there is the opportunity to show something that may have been neglected so far. Why was something like this not told before? After all, it is about half of the population. Equality is sexy, consent is sexy. What can we do with this? The political is derived from cinematic questions. But essentially, it is about emotions that are slowly developing. The film builds the love story on different levels: Desire, intellectual exchange, friendship. These give rise to what we call love. That is the heart of the film.

I: [T: In Austria,] you are known for films like ‘The Unknown Girl’ from the Dardenne Brothers or the Anti-AIDS-drama ‘120 BPM’ from Robin Campillo. But ‘Portrait’ takes place around 1770. Is a period film another challenge?

AH: I have already made three films that took place in the 18th century. It doesn’t really make a difference for me. I think that ‘Portrait’ is closer to ‘Water Lilies’ (Céline Sciamma’s film, which was Haenel’s breakthrough in 2007) than to other period films. But I like costumes, because they make it necessary to reinvent yourself. They not only change the way you move, but also how you speak.

I: ‘En Liberté!’ will shortly be released here with the weird [T: German] title ‘Lieber Antoine als gar keinen Ärger’ [T: literally – Better to have Antoine than no trouble]. This film seems to be completely different from ‘Portrait’.

AH: That’s true, but it was also a remarkable experience. I learned a lot while shooting ‘En Liberté!’ – for example, how to bust clichés. When you’re doing a comedy, you really have to pay attention to the rhythm, and what is underneath. I believe, being aware about the conflict between what you say and what you mean has helped me perform the subtext in ‘Portrait’ later on. Although [T: these films] are quite different, there is a continuity for me. I love this film.

I: You play a [T: lieutenant]?

AH: It is about lies and people who try to survive their own lies. It is about a mafia-like structure and about guilt. The film is very funny – and very successful in France.

I: In Cannes, you were not only featured with ‘Portrait’, but also with ‘Les héros ne meurent jamais’ [T: Heroes don’t die], a combination of fiction and documentary about the war in Bosnia. Your range is broad. What is the kind of screenplay that sparks your interest?

AH: With ‘En Liberté!’, I knew intuitively that I wanted to do the film, even before I read the script. But I often try to figure out if there’s something behind the story that is left unsaid. In ‘Les héros ne meurent jamais’, there was also a connection between reality and fiction, a need to invent something and to tell stories that particularly interested me. This is something I truly love.

I: You also play theatre. But your current project with Gisèle Vienne on Robert Walser was postponed.

AH: Yes, until next year. Maybe it will also come to Austria. I love to act, but not the stuff around it. For me, it is about exploration, that is even more prominent in theatre than in film. I did a lot of theatre when I was a child. Then I stopped and started again in 2012 with ‘The Seagull’. Since then, I did more theatre. I love it. I think, Céline (Sciamma) is one of the most important contemporary female directors, and Gisèle is the same for theatre. I believe what we do with her is exploring movement, emotions and time. But for that you also need time – and I take it.

I: Finally, about your Austrian roots: Your father is from Graz?

AH: Yes, but he left when he was young. He has lived in France since 1968, I believe, and he doesn’t have the Austrian citizenship anymore, as you cannot have both. I sometimes went on vacation in Styria when I was a child. We primarily spoke French during my childhood. When we were young, he still spoke German with us, but we stopped pretty quickly. I only started [T: to speak German] again when I did the film ‘The Bloom of Yesterday’ with Chris Kraus. It was quite exhausting, but also funny how quickly my German came back.

I: You also received the ‘Prix Romy Schneider’.

AH: Indeed, but I didn’t really grow up with her films. I watched anime or films with [T: Jean-Paul] Belmondo as a child. I wasn’t a cinephile. That is why I didn’t think of Romy Schneider, when I started to act. I really didn’t have any actors/actresses as role model. I wanted to act not become a film star.

I: The new [T: controversial] Nobel laureate in literature, Peter Handke, has lived in Paris for a long time. Have you read anything by him?

AH: I remember for example a passage from ‘Über die Dörfer’ [T: literally – ‘About the villages’], where it says: Forget about your family and learn to love what is foreign… [T: das Fremde is difficult to translate, it’s the opposite of home] But I don’t have a strong connection with his works. I feel more connected with Elfriede Jelinek or Thomas Bernhard.

[T: Omitted short bio]

Picture sources: [1], [2-3], [4], [5], [6], [7]