Substance: Why you can’t forget this movie with Demi Moore after seeing it?

Prior to The Substance, Coralie Farjit starred in two short films and her first feature film, Revenge, which was released in 2018. But after The Substance, the filmmaker’s name was heard by everyone. It gave Demi Moore her best role, won the screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was a huge success across the Atlantic – the most important distributor for MUBI.

“Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself?“This is the question, existential, to say the least, on which the concept of the film Elizabeth Sparkle is based.Demi Moore), a famous actor in decline cracks under the pressure of an industry that demonizes aging and injects himself with a strange substance. She revives a younger, prettier version of herself (Margaret Quall).

The viewer knows the experiment will go wrong, but doesn’t know how. The screenwriter and director develop a unique, feminist and outrageous cinematic experience. It masterfully captures the descent into hell with precise feeling, superb direction of the cast – Demi Moore, committed to her role, is impressive – and boundless creativity.

AlloCiné caught up with director Coralie Fargit to find out what’s going on in her imagination.

AlloCiné: Film always goes further. When you think you’ve hit the glass ceiling, you break it to move on to the next one. Feel like you’ve finished your project?

Korali Fargit, screenwriter and director: The film was extremely cathartic because it had no limits other than my sincerity and my determination to express what I wanted to express in its extreme, excess. It’s really one of those things that I struggled to keep that edge because I knew that was the DNA of the film.

It’s a gamble and a risk, right, because we’re creating something that’s not normal or that doesn’t adhere to normal standards. Especially depending on gender, it can always fall one way or another. I think we’re always a little bound to flirt with the boundaries of the grotesque and the grand Guignol in order to find that space of freedom and catharsis that allows us to purify ourselves.

The most beautiful emotion I had during the movie last night was the ending of the movie. I don’t want to spoil it, but when we got to the final scene and I saw the enthusiastic reaction of the audience, it got me interested, because I knew that the excess of the film was received. I worked hard on this and I’m so glad I was able to see it through.

Demi Moore and I talked a lot about how I wanted to do all the nudity scenes.

Your film is economical with words. The pictures speak for the characters. Substance could have been a silent film.

true When I was writing the film, I was really very specific about what I wanted to show visually because, as you say, there’s very little dialogue. I write a lot of instructions in my scripts.

It’s almost like novels, where I really describe everything we feel, everything we perceive, even with sound, how close I’m going to shoot certain places, etc. This whole part was already transferred from the script.

Demi Moore gives it her all in The Substance. It reveals itself like never before. He has used his body as a weapon several times in his films: Striptease, Equal Weapons… How were you able to build a bond of trust with him?

Very early on when we met, when we started discussing the film and the prospect of working together, the topic of trust came up very quickly. The body and its nakedness, its awkward side, would have a real meaning in the film and I wanted her to feel comfortable with that, otherwise she would be unhappy and so would I.

As you said, I think the relationship with her body is something that crossed her life. Before working with her, I read her autobiography, which shocked me, because I saw what she went through and how much she built herself with her own hands, how much she was a feminist before her time, when she managed to establish herself in a man’s world.

I think instinctively he understood the power of film. He understood the power of this tool, which could tickle a sensitive chord, because I knew that this role would be very confrontational for the actor. What struck me about Demi’s book is her intelligence, that instinctive side. He is a person who has a very strong intuition.

Trust does not come from nowhere. We talked a lot about how I wanted to shoot all the nudity scenes, all the body scenes, and also explain the meaning behind them. Demi quickly saw the importance of visual composition and how much the body should remain embodied.

There were many difficult moments because it was an involved shoot.

What was it like filming with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley?

They were always focused on embodiment, always connected to people. They took their body as a real working tool, a real work in the service of a cinematic work. I think those were powerful moments. The whole team felt what was happening in this bathroom, which is very matrix.

There were many difficult moments because it was an involved shoot. So it was emotionally difficult. We were often tired. It was a long shoot. But both of them, even in difficult times, did not give up. Even if we were all fed up at times, we were all tired. There was this commitment to the film and they left.

What were the guidelines in your heads when you were building the visual world of The Substance?

There’s flying, there’s the John Carpenter thing. All Carpenters, in fact. There’s also Paul Verhoeven, who has a very strong relationship with the body, this very sensual, violent cinema, this absolutely incredible mix.

David Cronenberg, who is a filmmaker who influenced me a lot when I was a teenager, The Fly and The Naked Feast, a film that really disturbed me at the time, with a good sense of its strange corporeal worlds. Many reasons.

David Lynch too, to a degree. And then, really, a lot of other movies, let’s say more fun, like Freddy, where there’s all this slightly farewell fun, where we let go of things that don’t lead us in real life and that’s nice. Which allows me to reach another dimension, to build a world that is rich and fun at the same time and very artisanal, basically.

Commentary collected by Thomas Desroches, Cannes, May 2024.

Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, in theaters November 6.