Kanay: Why did this comedy with Francois Clouze take so long to see the light of day?

Originally a novel…

Canailles is inspired by the novel Une canaille et demi written by British Ian Levison and first published in 2006. director Christopher Offenstein thanks to found Francois Clouse (which he released in En Solitaire) as he recalls:

“After En Solitaire, we discussed working together. We both fell in love with Une Canaille et Demi, which was the right story for us to adapt into a film. It had all the ingredients for the story I wanted to tell: the dysfunction of society, the singularity of the characters and the satire of everyday life.”

Long-term adaptation work

Christopher Offenstein And screenwriters Narjis Slaui, Gabor Rasov and Jonathan Kulawski struggled to find the right angle of attack because the book is set in the United States (where the cultural codes are very different from ours). The director recalls:

“The interest of the novel lay primarily in its psychological dimension, and we had to convey the inner suffering of the characters in order to create grotesque situations, sometimes tender, sometimes tense, sometimes funny.

“Writing the adaptation of this novel took a long time, and after three years of work with the help of Narji Slau and Jonathan Kulawski, the script was finally finished.

Narji Slauy adds: “The story was very interesting, but it was fundamentally part of a cynical America that craves money and recognition. So it had to be transferred to the current French context.”

“I met Iain Levinson when he was in Paris and he gave us complete freedom to adapt. (…) Between the moment when the idea for the film was born and the moment it was released in the cinema, it is an incredible journey that I discovered. at all stages of its construction”.

The spatial frame is undefined

Christopher Offenstein Voluntarily placed Kanail’s story in an obscure space. He explains: “It can happen in the suburbs of a big city, or in an average provincial town, or even outside of France.”

“It also connects to my desire to engage the audience in individual stories, almost like satisfying the guilty pleasure that is curiosity. Here we enter the intimacy of this home with others, a place where lives intersect at a glance. Really revealing themselves.”

American news!

From baseball to cheerleading, Christopher Offenstein chose to multiply the American code references. He wanted to keep these references to American culture in order to move the film a bit (especially since these are not the usual situations found in French cinema).

“The presence of volunteers was also a way to show the evolution of our new generation, whose geographical and cultural differences are increasingly blurred, especially in social networks…” – notes the director.

An aesthetic choice

Christopher Offenstein, production designer Olivier Radeau and director Martin de Chabanay worked primarily on Elijah’s character’s house, the film’s main scene. They tried to make the light timeless and geographically imprecise, as the filmmaker explains:

“This approach allowed us to emphasize the humorous dimension. I wanted the film to borrow certain codes from thrillers, but without suffering. On the contrary, I wanted moments of everyday life to avoid unnecessary suspense.”

“But the main thing was to make nature and life appear everywhere, so that we don’t ask ourselves questions and never know where the film will take us.”