slap him Farang
At the cinema on June 28, 2023, Farang is the new film by Xavier Gens, pure genre film and orgy of pleasurable, brutal and ultra-violent action. Five years after his last feature film, the comedy Budapest, the change of register is radical and largely smiles on the director. In Farangputs all his passion for action cinema and applies the methods of director Gareth Evans and theaction designer Jude Poyer, with whom he worked on the series London gangs. Result: a film such as is seen too rarely, with an ultra-charismatic lead actor and perfect for a formidable story of revenge, the very soon star Nassim Lyes.
Meeting with Xavier Gens
did you understand Farang, a pure action film and a real sensation in the French cinema landscape. What was the idea?
more savior people : The idea was to try to make a French film, with what I’ve learned London gangsapplying these working methods and working with them action designer Jude Poyer. It allowed me to fully understand the mechanisms of action cinema, the traditional one but above all that of Hong Kong. He worked a lot with Gareth Evans, he designed his choreographies, which made it possible to optimize as much as possible and to have this continuity with Farang.
I myself worked a little with Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam, when they came to work in France, a Maximum risk AND Double team, as a trainee director. And I was already learning their working method, the wide angle, the dynamics of a fight scene in a long shot, to avoid excessive cutting during editing. We really wanted to apply these principles to a traditional French film and look for verism right from the start. Try to be as authentic as possible, then gradually move towards the baroque, while maintaining the realism of the action. I wanted it to blow up in my face, but still be realistic. The idea was absolutely to avoid the flank Cartoon of action.
You need a grate, you need to be able to convey this visceral feeling of pain and brutality through the staging. The character takes the blows and the viewer must feel them with him. And it’s only through staging that you get this immersion.
When was the project born? Farang ?
more savior people : Farang preceded London gangs, in writing. I made a first version of the screenplay with Stéphane Cabel a few years ago, without finding exactly what we had to say. Then I did Budapest, papicha in production, then Guillaume Lemans, screenwriter in particular of Point blankarrived saying “I think you should resume your Farang project”, she thought the story was great. With Magali Rossito, the other writer of the film, we pushed the immersion, the experience and where the story could go.
Parallel to this recovery, I let it go London gangsand keep working papicha, continuing to write. i go out from London gangs et je leur dis : “j’ai eu une révélation, je pense qu’il faut qu’on le fasse comme ça, et comme ça…” On a réécrit une dernière fois ensemble, pour ce qu’on voit à l ‘screen. It has really been transformed by papicha AND London gangs.
To what extent is it a movie papicha affects a movie like Farang ?
more savior people : It is the freedom with which Mounia directs (Mounia Meddour and Xavier Gens have been married since 2005, ed). She tries to recreate reality with her actors of hers. Because she’s from the documentary, she has a written scene but she’s mostly trying to bring the scene to life. I witness it and I tell myself that you are right, you don’t care about shots / reverse shots, at the limit, your technique doesn’t interest you, you leave it to the chief-op, your idea of yourself is to capture the life that it happens on set. Until then all my films were very technically prepared, as far as Cold skin for example, and it was only once this space had been determined that I asked myself the question of placing my actors there.
For Farang, I decided to do the opposite, to do like Mounia. First he creates a realistic, authentic environment, and from there he films this staging. Being very technical, I learned to go first towards the actors, towards the authenticity of what is happening. Each film influences the other and it is obvious that there is a great influence of her work on mine. Go towards the authentic, and forget the artifice of cinema.
Faranghe’s also a formidable Nassim Lyes, both beastly and understated.
more savior people : When I met Nassim, I found him radiant and I thought he would be perfect for the film. My producer introduced him to me and he really wanted him for the film. He’s physically ready since he was born, which means he’s always working hard. For his physique as for the game, he really works all the time. He has boundless energy, he’s funny, funny and his hard work makes things easy.
Nassim was waiting for a film like this, planets align, and when we met and I made him read it, he dreamed of doing it. He impressed me from the first to the last day of shooting. He hurt himself, dislocated himself and tied himself up to get back in a hurry … He’s someone who doesn’t count the hours, who’s in the lead, who gives 2000%. That’s great for a director, because it’s not like that for all actors.
Farang: Nassim Lyes and Xavier Gens win by TKO
The film offers a phenomenal final sequence, what was it like shooting?
more savior people : The two sequences that make up the final fight, was very organized. In reality, the most difficult was Covid. We were in full confinement, we were tested every morning, we wore masks, health management was complicated for me, it took a lot of time and energy. Of course, the elevator and corridor scene was the hardest, but we set them up so much! A preparation of more than three months, so when it was time to shoot, we just had to apply what we had recorded with our phones, the count of the accessories was done, everything was ready on the special effects side.
We worked shot by shot with Jude, we shot and then we saw what it was like. It’s a work of precision, down to the image: “here it’s fine, there you should use this plan, here the stunt he has to make such a move instead. When Nassim was in the shot it was necessary to be precise with respect to the height of the arm, each shot was scrupulously repeated. There are a lot of stab wounds in these scenes, which are things you can’t fake like a gun. You had to have false blades, be the right height. With every recovery there are small injuries, because there are impacts despite everything.
The pool scene was also tricky because we were doing it with foam balls but at one point Nassim’s fingers really hit… There’s a lot of little things to sort out. But with so much pleasure and benevolence, we mostly enjoyed ourselves. In one shoot we are galvanized by what we do, but at the same time we need to be very rigorous, with military discipline, to get the desired result. It’s impossible to improvise on an action sequence.
The main antagonist is played by Olivier Gourmet, why him?
more savior people : I was offered Booba. I declined, as I thought it was cliché. I have a lot of respect for him, but I think we would have ended up with something too urban, which was not the idea of the film. I also wanted to be authentic there, and avoid the cinematic artifice of chasing the hip-hop star to play the bad guy. It is a 90s action film convention of American culture, while when you go to Thailand and see the reality farang, are quite white, fat and libidinous. So I said to myself… I was going to say: “I’m going to get a Belgian actor” (laughs).
No, seriously, I wanted someone… My reference was Gene Hackman Ruthless, someone bad but a bit of a loser, where in his reality he does what seems good to him. He has the morals of him and when things go wrong, he eliminates. Olivier is a lovely person, and he has this background…
I think it was Kubrick who said: “each actor carries the baggage of what he has done before”, and Olivier Gourmet has for him, for example, the Dardenne arthouse films. He marked me Lorna’s silenceor otherwise in Assassins, he’s got this mob thing. I wanted this Olivier there, but keeping the kindness of him, the fact that he was smiling.
You’re preparing a film about sharks, for which you find Nassim Lyes. It is entitled Sharks, how do we hear it? Can you tell us something more?
more savior people : So we don’t have a final title yet. For Nassim, he’s the head of the Paris River Brigade, and I don’t think we’ve seen him that way yet. There is action, but above all many underwater scenes, which we shot for 6 weeks in a reservoir in Belgium. It wasn’t easy, but it really ensured. Bérénice Bejo plays an activist, a very committed personality, and I also think we’ve never seen her like that. I can’t say much about that, but there’s a triathlon in the movie, then there’s a swim in the Seine, and the two have to stop the sharks from wreaking havoc there. Except… (laughs).
It’s very exciting to make this kind of film, which is very serious and has nothing comedic about it, which you might think when you pitch it! In any case, I am very happy with what we are doing and I think it will be amazing.
There is also chaosthe long-awaited film by Gareth Evans with Tom Hardy, in which you took part.
more savior people : I was in charge of the second team ofchaos, and working with Gareth is like working with a mentor and we get along great. So when he offers me the second team, I go there first as a friend, but also as a diligent student because I know I’m going to learn a lot. We shot amazing things. I think that in this film he has reinvented the staging of action, with sequences that will become cult. Gareth is the best today, can’t waitchaos you can see.
Gareth is obsessed with cinema in general and Asian cinema in particular. He lives only for that, only talks about that, always looks at something. All his life he will be on a set. His creativity is insane, especially when it comes to action and ultra-violence! (laughs). I am lucky to have such a friend around me, he is very precious.
Last question, you mentioned Cold skin, in which the recently deceased Ray Stevenson starred. What do you remember about him?
more savior people : Ray Stevenson, I worked with him on the series Pedestrian crossing and so Cold skin. He was a very generous person, he was an ogre of life. It doesn’t really surprise me that he left very early, he was in life as well as on screen. He liked to party, surround himself with people, give love to others, always.
I think of him and see a smiling boy, with his costumes and hairstyles from the shooting of the day before, who cuts cheese and makes everyone drink wine. He has organized big parties, since the first weekend of shooting, to be able to keep the team awake, to create real cohesion. He was someone who wanted people to be happy around him. And to have someone able to create it was insane. He loved life. He left early but he really enjoyed himself.
Source: Cine Serie
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