French Campaign: Sinking people in local elections

The documentary La Campagne de France is coming out in cinemas this Wednesday, Sinking a Man in the 2020 Municipal Campaign in the village of Preili and its three very different lists. For this occasion AlloCiné spoke with the film’s director, Sylvain Desclus.

AlloCiné: This is the third time you have filmed in Preuilly-sur-Claise after part of La peau dure and Vendor, your feature film, where does your riding with this village come from?

Sylvain Desclus : This is my grandfather’s village, they lived there, they died there, also my uncle’s village, where I spent almost the whole summer vacation as a child (…) So this is me village. It has been known for about fifty years.

We feel that you are wondering about the people living there and their concern, which is terribly specific, was it your desire to capture images of these everyday issues?

At first I really wanted to repeat the documentary experience I started with La Peau and this time I was making a feature film that takes place in a village, not to make a film about the village, but to make a film in the village. . And this is when local self-government elections await us.

And I had an intuition that filming the village, its life, its inhabitants during the municipal elections, which everyone was looking forward to, would be interesting, surprising, and that it would be part of the village in the countryside.

(…) When I started writing the film, there were two lists that needed to be formed and a month before filming started, Mathieu Bartelle called me and told me that he had created a third list, which was very much. Surprising and quite promising, profitable for the film.

And when he told me that he was on this list, that he was going to reunite Guy, I realized that a lot was happening and that I had two of my main characters. And what made the municipal campaign, especially in the rural population of 1,000, the goals and challenges (…) extremely specific and everyday.

You mentioned Guy Burre and Mathieu Barthelemy, did you know them before the film was made and why did you decide to show them mainly and less to other candidates?

As soon as Matthew and Guy invaded the countryside, I knew my film was there, that I had to follow them to get a surprising, fun and exciting film. It was there that I decided that my film would not be a documentary about elections with equal talk time between the three lists, but a campaign seen through a specific prism.

I quickly realized that they possessed all the attributes of a movie couple as a friend in a movie. They blended in perfectly with each other (…), acquired a sense of calm towards the camera and freedom of tone and speech, which was a pleasure to shoot and edit.

When I saw Mathieu spinning in the countryside, I had the image of Jacques Tati: he walks fast, he has energy, passion, his hair flutters in the wind, there is no such 50!

As for Guy, everyone in the village knows him, many do not like him – which is also reflected in the film – he is a bit of a big person who praises a little and with whose cunning and tricks he deserved great enmity in the village. I also liked to scratch and see who he really was (…).

Do you think the fact that three candidates from Preuilly say they are all labeled means a symbolic desire for “resistance” from the village of Preuilly, or a lack of political class interest in places that are considered too small to send candidates there? Parties?

I think this is neither one nor the other, and it reflects a kind of rather strong distrust of national politics, poses, and the surface debate. (…) as if they were afraid that attaching a label might harm them, contaminate them.

In addition to being at the local level, isn’t there also some “violence” in human relations, which is probably more personal than during the exemplary debate in the presidential election? I think of the gentleman who picks up the microphone to verbally attack a neighbor and tell him he would never follow her.

Unlike you, I find it quite healthy and not so violent. To say to someone: “Anyway, I would not follow you” is still much less violent than …

Agree, my term ‘violent’ is not appropriate, which I mean is that it allows for more direct interaction.

Yes, of course, a political campaign at a small village level where everyone has almost always known each other will put opponents in more direct contact. (…) But I find it extremely human (…), respectful and sincere. It’s not fun to listen to (…), but it deserves sincerity and I was not surprised.

In the film we see different ways of perceiving the campaign, the ultra-preparation of some, the affection of others, those who reflect 4 days before the election, or the calm of the mayor on the ground, who seems almost certain to iron out. . Observe the relationship between method and outcome for each candidate?

No, because I did not know enough about the three-list strategy, but what I found very quickly was that Mathieu and Guy’s list was what we were going to talk about the most, and that Mathieu’s unearthly side really was. At some point it will cause him a problem and that being on Guy’s list would be annoying.

Do not hesitate to approach more powerful moments, such as the scenes of Matthew and his father. After all, wasn’t intimacy as intriguing as the village?

I could never have imagined that we could access these scenes and that the film could have such moving (for Matthew’s father) or funny nails on the weirdness of the village. (…) I knew I wanted to make a short, tense film (because we want to know who will win the election), with strong protagonists with whom we find sympathy, that we want to vote for them. If not, I would have given myself the right to take this step with Mathieu.

(…) These are tender scenes that help us understand where he is, where he comes from and what motivates him. The red thread of the village, we understand, is held by the other last father.

Interestingly, at the beginning of the film the viewer stands in the same position as a resident of Preil who thinks it’s Mathieu Barthelemy an opportunist who comes down from Paris to make room and the film breaks that. A priori.

(…) I think the viewer can say a priori to himself from the beginning: “We are going to have a little bit of village cleverness and local elections” and I am. He is especially eager to shoot a film that takes the opposite side and goes beyond appearance.

I did not make a film about the election, the message of the village or democracy, but to make people as realistic as possible, to evoke the emotion and sympathy of the audience. (…) I wanted to discover the difficulty.

This difficulty is presented by Mathieu, who has both a certain inconvenience but also a very organized one, he argues – fairly – that by offering the solutions that he has proven to be used, he has invested his soul and body in this election.

Absolutely and what you say reflects the third meaning of the word campaign. Is a French village in the rural sense of the term, rural in the electoral sense, and rural in a slightly military sense, as Mathieu took the matter very seriously and generally acted as a soldier, fixing what was needed. Do not do it for victory, so you are absolutely right.

Finally, the movie made us hear Goven Cersei song, Forgotten and who is on this abandonment of the countryside and whose refrain says: “We are forgotten / village, lost / too far from Paris / their least concern”. And I think that echoed your film. In a poem that says, “What a sad yard without the cries of the brothers,” he really responds to the problems of Preuli, who is trying to keep young people in the village.

, It’s Bertrand Bellini who performed the music and his style, as well as his touch, adds a lot to this somewhat poetic and somewhat humorous feeling that the film conveys. But this is ridiculous because (…) I was reading an interview with Benoit Cockard and Jael Amseleim-Maingut ყThe world, Two sociologists specializing in the rural world (…) and both cited Gauvain Sers songs as one of those who sometimes portrays rural issues most beautifully in words and songs. I do not know, but I’m going to listen now!

Interview March 3, 2022.