Interview with ‘Sororal’ directors Frédéric Even and Louise Mercadier
Sororal is a beautiful film centered around three sisters who, whilst awaiting an impending flood, deal with their deteriorating situation in different ways and begin to lose sight of one another. The film makes use of many classical art approaches, from the poised, elegant faces of the puppets to the mirroring of the dry terrain in the texture of their skin, alongside brooding, atmospheric lighting techniques that combine to create a continuous feeling of dread and somberness. Having screened at across the world at events including ITFS Stuttgart, Tricky Women, Kaboom! Amsterdam and Aesthetica, the film is continuing its festival run this month as part of the official selection of Festival Stop Motion Montréal.
The film represents Frédéric Even and Louise Mercadier’s second foray into stop-motion, having worked together previously on their first short film Metamorphosis based on the classic Kafka story. By incorporating a range of techniques and materials the filmmaker have created a textural delight, boasting staggeringly honest puppets that mimic the same brutal honesty the three women exhibit in the film when vocalising their emotions to one another, and thus the audience.
How did you both meet and how did you come to work in animation?
We met in the literary preparatory class. At the end of our studies we made, for fun, a photo story with puppets. We decided to send it to a comic book publisher to have feedback – he told us that he couldn’t publish it but that we should make an animated puppet film. The idea began to germinate in our head. At that time we were interested in the filmography of David Lynch and particularly his first feature film Eraserhead which had struck us very much. We knew that originally he wanted to adapt Kafka’s novel Metamorphosis, so we came up with the idea of making an animated film inspired by this short story. Although many adaptations of this short story have already been made, we wanted to make our own staging of this story that inspired us a lot. After three years we had made our first animated puppet film Métamorphose and it was through this film that we entered the world of animation.
What inspired you to base the film around an impending natural disaster?
We wanted to tell a story that shows how, paradoxically, the perspective of chaos can be a means of finding a strong link with the environment, with the living and with the other. Therefore the impending natural disaster appeared to us obvious for staging such a story. We chose the sea as the natural elements because of the poems collection Amers written by Saint-John Perse. We were fascinated by his way of evoking the sea, the metaphysical dimension it gives it, how it shows that its power and its vastness are capable of troubling us.
Sororal (Papy3D)
The three sisters all react very differently to both the impending flood and one another’s individual ailments – what do each of the women represent to you both?
Each sister effectively embodies a different temperament and mode of reaction. We can say that Madeleine has the most natural and instinctive reaction. Her instant panic fear somehow deprives her other sisters of the possibility of reacting this way. They have to take it upon themselves and deal with the fear of their sister first. It is primarily Emilie who plays this role and in contrast, this event gives rise to a form of mysticism in her: she develops a fascination for the sea, its power, she feels connected to the sea as if she could continue to live within it. On the contrary, Anna feels a form of existential emptiness. The question of meaning arises for her. The event seems absurd to her she then becomes completely apathetic. The two rejection reactions of Madeleine and Anna lead to a metamorphosis of their body which hardens and lose flexibility. Emilie’s body, on the contrary, is spared and remains a flexible symbol of the fact that she apprehends the event in a positive way
Sororal (Papy3D)
The puppets themselves are very interesting with some of the joints purposely visible, such as the hands. Can I ask what kind of armature you used and how the puppets were created?
We used black annealed wire for the armature. Faces were first modelled in 3D on Blender software. They were then printed with a 3D printer. They serve as models for the sculptors to create the faces of the three sisters and to make the moulds. The puppets are made of resin. For their design, we were inspired by gothic sculpture. We particularly liked how they represent the eyes in this period. Indeed in the 12th century, French sculptors discovered Asian art and we can feel the influence of this discovery in their creation, especially the slightly slanted eyes. The mixture of French gothic art and Asian art gives a really amazing result
Sororal (Papy3D)
The mouth replacement lines are also displayed, the puppets have an almost brutal honesty to them, what did this bring to the narrative?
We didn’t want to hide that they were puppets, to be realistic and give them the appearance of flesh and blood characters. We found that seeing the mouth replacement lines and the joints in their hands help make them fragile and touching and although the distance is established with a being of flesh and bone it creates more empathy than with more realistic representation. We feel that they can break, we feel the precariousness of their construction. They appear all the more disarmed in the face of the immense wave which threatens them.
Sororal (Papy3D)
Something I noticed was that none of the women has any hair, either on their head or the rest of their body, was this intentional or just something based on practical considerations
We found that hair often makes puppets look like barbies or dolls and we didn’t like that aesthetic. We first thought of representing their hair in hard, in resin, but we wanted to make the viewer feel the imprint of the wind on their body make him feel how the atmosphere is charged, show that the sisters are no longer living in the environment but that it is the environment that lives on them. So hard hair, their fixity was a problem for us. We then had the idea of setting a veil on their hair which was consistent with the gothic aesthetic and allowed us to create movement above their heads, to create something more alive.
Sororal (Papy3D)
The lighting in the film is stunning, along with the smooth features and headscarves of the women there is an almost Baroque aesthetic to the film; some shots could be from a Vermeer painting. What visual inspiration did you have for the film?
Through framing and light, the idea was to show to the crisis within the sorority and the imminence of the disaster. Light reflects the increasingly deleterious and apocalyptic atmosphere. We thought of the scenes as paintings and we were inspired by certain works by Rembrandt for the interior scenes but also the light work of the film Mirror by Andrei Tarkovski.
Sororal (Papy3D)
What are your future plans for the film?
The film will continue its life in festivals for another year after which it will be free. We hope that festivals can take place and that it can be broadcast in theatres because the film is more highlighted in theatres than on the computer screen. The big screen and the sound of cinemas makes it easier to enter the film
Are you working on something together now?
Yes, today we are working on a new film project, still with puppets. It is the story of an idiotic angel projected into space and time during important events. From fall to fall, he witnesses moments when a radical change takes place. We hope to be able to achieve it, it is an ambitious project…
Sororal screens as part of this year’s Festival Stop Motion Montréal in Programme 3, available to rent via VUCAVU until Monday September 21st.
You can see more of Frédéric Even and Louise Mercadier’s work on their Vimeo page and Tumblr. You can keep up to date with the film’s progress and upcoming festival participation here.