[INTERVIEW] ILAN KLIPPER (The starry Sky above my head)

With The starry Sky above my head, Ilan Klipper achieves a closed-door tragicomique, where Bruno, a novelist, a recluse at his home, sees his daily life disrupted by the intervention of his family worried. From the reality to the fantasy and the imaginary, the film multiplies the possibilities of interpretation between family drama and romantic encounter. The film’s director, came to present his film to the ACID Cannes, the decrypts with us.

The film is quite rich in elements, how would you summarize ?

My interpretation is that, it is the story of a man alone in his home, with his pen, and who is exalted. Exalted, because he is in constant search, it tries to capture all the elements that there are to around him to knead and form into a work. Because I think that when one is in a moment of creation, it is exalted. My idea, therefore, is that by doing this, it tries to find what will be her next novel. I think he imagines a history of intervention by his family, that may be, he would have lived in the past.

 

The film then adopts multiple temporalities.

This film, I did it because I imagined in the moments where I work. Moments where I am in several moments of my life. When I write, I think back to things that I experienced, that were told to me, and at the same time in parallel, I can hear my girlfriend say something, or watch tv… And it all goes on the same plan. All of these memories blend together in a moment of writing, where the past is as important as the present. For me, the film therefore had to marry this form, this is why it’s happening on multiple timescales. But one never really knows if what one sees is a dream, a flashback, a moment of this… The question is not clear. Because I like that the viewer gets from the film, remembering scenes and put it back in order. It is that fact that it is a film that is fragmented, in fact, but this is how I see the process of creation.

 

There is a failover when it encounters the psychiatrist and falls in love.

The character is a grand romantic in the sense that, the only thing that matters to him is the amorous encounter. I am much inspired from a scene of Lost Highway by David Lynch. In a garage, at idle, with the music of Lou Reed, who starts. We see a woman who steps out of the car, the mechanic who turns around and both look at each other by crossing. And we understand that the ” magic moment “is happening there, between them. It is nothing, just a look ephemeral. Therefore, it is a film about the amorous encounter, and on how a character imagines that love conquers all. We think at the beginning that the main story is the rescue, but in reality, it is the encounter.

 

For me, the main story revolved around the folly all the same, and how one passes from a crazy man, a crazy world.

Yes, but it suits me very well, even if I would say that it is rather a matter of mental suffering, but it is also what is at stake. I have made three films on madness ; a documentary in Sainte-Anne, a short film with the singer Christophe, who is also an artist, for me, bipolar, and therefore, the last part of a triptych. What interests me from this point of view, it is to show, in fact, someone a bit on a ridge line. But as any person. It talks about a guy who lives in a different way, and receives the gaze of people to the life stereotypical. Each one comes with his world, except that looking at them with the magnifying glass, there is still a lot of deviance in each other.

 

This is really a question of point of view, and can be a sign of decline, even of tolerance.

Exactly. We all have moments in our lives a little bit strange, or knowledge that are packed on something. When you look at them, we say that it is weird. I have a friend who told me about an idea box interactive. He spent six months on it, and I do not understand. I thought it was totally crazy. And then he moved on to something else. One door fast judgments about how one has to live, so yes, it is the question of tolerance. Or how can we accept that others can live differently. I believe that the people cannot bear the character of Bruno, also because it embodies a form of freedom. This is not someone who lives on the rails.

 

Can you tell us about this choice of title ?

In fact, it is a quote, the last words of Critique of pure reason, Kant. “Two things fill the heart with admiration and awe, the starry sky above me, the moral law in me. “I’m not going to make an explanation of Kant, but what it evokes in any case, it is the idea that there are forces beyond us. From my point of view, we may act full of places, with a lot of freedom. But there are forces that carry us. Compared to film, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there are twists, but things don’t go as they should, because, here, the famous ” starry sky “, this thing irrational that plane.

 

That is for you, the ACID, where the film is selected ?

It is a selection that I respect a lot. I met with the filmmakers that there are, are people who like the film and are sensitive. So I feel that I have been selected by people I respect. Sometimes, breeders may have a look, not necessarily biased, but let’s say that they choose based on criteria rather than the quality of the film. The ACID, it is a collective of filmmakers with a very democratic. They choose really for beatings of the heart. It impacted me a lot.

About collected the 24/05/2017 to Cannes by Pierre Siclier