Albert Serra on the Utopia of Libert and Pushing the Mental Borders of His Audience – The Film Stage

The New York Film Festivals Dennis Lim delivered director Albert Serra to me in the lobby of the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center during the 57th edition of the festival last fall. Serra was traveling solo for the American debut of Libert, which picked up a Special Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival when it premiered in the Un Certain Regard section.

We didnt know where to record our conversation so we intruded on the festival staffs lounge. Serra set up two U-shaped leather chairs facing each other. He grabbed us drinks from the bar and moved in close. Talking to the director is a lot like watching his movies; you listen and watch closely for long, unbroken amounts of time. You dont analyze Serras filmthey analyze you. Some directors refuse to speak about their own workespecially with the pressbut Serra will gladly dissect his own, even if he objects to your questions, as you will see in our conversation.

Libert follows Madame de Dumeval, the Duke de Tesis, and the Duke de Wandlibertines expelled from the puritanical court of Louis XVI in 1774who intend to spread libertinage from Paris to Berlin. To further their cause they need the help of Duc de Walchen (Helmut Berger), a German seducer and freethinker, who is lonely in a country where hypocrisy and false virtue reign.

In our conversation, Serra discusses his artists sexual language, Liberts utopia of liberty, not knowing whats real and whats fake in his movies, upsetting uptight liberals, and what it means to create contemporary trash.

The Film Stage: The groups sexual language involves bondage and capture. Can you discuss the inspiration behind these elements?

Albert Serra: The film was inspired by Marquis de Sade. Theres complexity to this idea of freedom and desire how these two concepts can be matched if they can. If you think about sex, its always a relationship with somebody else or a lot of people or several people, whatever. I was talking yesterday about this friction and it is inevitable friction. Sometimes it can be very harmonious, but perfect harmony doesnt exist. Friction in itself creates more possibilities. Maybethere are people that can be super happy to live without desire, but with time, things tend to change, and the proper nature of desire is to get tired of the same practice with the same people in the same body. If you have a harmonious moment, in general, it will not last. This is our psychological experience as human beings. The permanent non-satisfaction of desire. Give a man everything he desires and everything will immediately not be everything. It means that you always need something else.

To create utopia you have to force things, it never happens naturally. There is some first moment where there is some resistance. Maybe forcing something, you will get yours and you realize the value of what youre doing and maybe your desire and your body adapts to this idea of inevitable friction in a pleasant way. Sometimes pain and pleasure get confused because its the first moment of you dont not knowing exactly what you are feeling. You dont know exactly if youre being forced to feel something or if you really like it. In this moment of confusion that is something nice.

Its part of the utopia of liberty, because not everybody can feel the same things at the same time. So there is always somebody that is feeling less or feeling differently.

Is that why you created an intimate environment and let improvisation happen?

I will not say improvisation. That sounds like we didnt know what we are doing and, in fact, we know what we are doing and the name of what we are doing is performance. Its really accepting the fatality as the characters of the film accept the fatality of their desire, the arbitrary weight of their desire. We accept the fatality even if its a film with a budget with some constraints. We accept the fatality of living unique moments. Its not improvisation. It starts from the very beginning with accepting that what you do at that moment wont happen again, we wont be able to shoot in the same intensity so every new moment will be different. Its totally acceptable as we dont know what we are doing. As we dont know what we are looking for, even.

Its not about improvisation. We have a very close and conceptual setup. The people, the place, the aesthetics. Its quite strong to think before the frame of where we will play this game. But then, everything gets forgotten and everything can happen. The non-communication aspect of my way of working, its fatalityits really a vision of fatality, but genuine fatality. Its not how we are pretending to accept these as if it were real, but the fact we are controlling through the process of production. No, we really accept this, thats all. These actors for me are not just actors representing somebody, but they are real artists themselves, working with their own fatality in front of the camera that is very subtle but its very precise. Thats all. This is a very different approach not common in cinema.

The actress who was hung by her hands from the tree and the actor who was whipped and screaming, was that really happening?

You never know until which point. I think this is the magic of the thing; because there is representation, its boring, since there is the real. Its like a documentary, people here are enjoying what they are doing. So here we are at a strange point. But even if I dont know myself, as I never asked anyone to do anything, people were enjoying it and somehow suffering. For me because of intimacy, again, this concept, its very personal to say, How is somebody enjoying it?

Obviously there are a lot of fake things, but there are also some real things. This idea corresponds with our idea of the night, the logic of the night. Sometimes we wake up the day up after and we say, Fuck, I dont remember what I did or what was real or if I said something wrong. It was very confusing and it was nice because the film reflects this confusion and the confusion of the night. But I am not capable of saying how much of this is real. It looks real, no?

Talking about the logic of the night, which has to do with the removal of the hierarchies, so on what basis are the characters choosing to sleep with each other?

Its arbitrary, because of this idea of giving, not receiving. This idea when you are in a place where its totally arbitrary, it means that you have not focused on what you are expecting, what you are feeling, what are your desires or what are your rights. You think about what other people feel, so you make a strange combination, and you simply act as a base. Add in the confusion of the points of view. This idea that you are a hunter but you are also the prey.

When its about giving, I think the arbitrary aspect is stronger. Okay, give to simply give. This gives the egalitarian aspect of the film. At the beginning, it looks like there is some hierarchy because there is some like some aristocrat. Gradually, slowly, this is totally destroyed and you see that there is no hierarchy at all.

What youre wanting to give the audience in Libert isnt necessarily a pornographic type of pleasure or eroticism. Your average film festival audience is kind of uptight liberals

Im trying to provoke them. Also with the title, Libert, it means if you dont do this, you are not free. All of these people that have sex in the movie are free. So its pushing the mental borders on people, I have to admit that its a provocation. Why dont you do this, why are you so boring? The confrontational aspect of this is important. I want them to be a little bit confronted. Its always true with this subject of sex. When people talk about sex in film they are not talking about the film itself, but about themselves. The very personal way the film is dealing with its subject. It touches something, and I was happy with this because it opens, in a weird way, I think in a very healthy way. The film allows you to project your own things because of its confused points of views.

In one of your interviews, you said with Libert youre creating contemporary trash. What does that mean?

Its not just a decorative historical film. Its more about the totally rotten way we relate to each other nowadays, physically. Harmony is lost. The possibility of harmony in the relation with bodies, I think its lost in general and I think its because of social media. It creates a lot of pain in people because they have such a strong control of their own image they are scared of everything. They are scared of everything you are not able to relate to give in a general or arbitrary way. It will not be nice anymore. Probably.

Its a very pessimistic approach. Its totally insane to think like this because I like to be optimistic but I dont see the way out of this problem of extreme difficulties of creating harmonies with bodies in the future. But maybe its my opinion, maybe Im wrong. I dont know, Im not a prophet or a visionary, but from what I feel, people are so in control of their own image. Being in control of your own image is worse than being in control of your own body or yourself, in general.

Libert is now playing in Film at Lincoln Centers Virtual Cinema.

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Albert Serra on the Utopia of Libert and Pushing the Mental Borders of His Audience - The Film Stage