Four years ago, Lukas Dhont won the film critic’s award in the Cannes section Un Certain Regard with “Girl”, a naked and gripping drama about a norm-breaking ballerina. The film (which can be streamed on SVT Play) revolves around the young trans person Lara who was born as a boy and gets into trouble when she tries to realize her dream of becoming a professional ballerina.
The attention around “Girl” led to severe performance anxiety, the director revealed at Friday’s press conference in Cannes.
– I did not know what to do, I had all sorts of suggestions. I doubted myself and was tormented by this. I wanted to do something that was as intense and passionate as “Girl”, said Lukas Dhont.
Everything suggests that he succeeded. “Close” has aroused strong feelings in the final sprint of the Cannes festival. The film is a bromance between two young boys who end up in tragedy, a sensitive upbringing drama about two 13-year-old besties who gradually fall apart when their close friendship is mocked and queer-stamped at school.
Above all, it is the hockey player Leo (Eden Dambrine) who pulls away and pushes away Remi (Gustav De Waele). When Remi commits suicide, Leo suffers from severe guilt that leads him to try to approach Rémi’s mother (Emilie Dequenne).
“Close” is based on the director’s own experiences of being afraid of intimacy as a young person. Something he thinks led him to repel many friends.
– If I had not done so, they might still have been in my life. Maybe we would have had long and amazing friendships. That’s something I’m still thinking about. As a boy, I did not belong anywhere, neither among the girls nor the boys, said Lukas Dhont and continued:
– I distanced myself in many ways from the people around me at school and lost many valuable friendships because I was afraid of closeness, afraid of being stigmatized in a certain way, Lukas Dhont said.
The Belgian director also talked about how he worked with actors Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele who are of school age.
– With young actors, it is crucial not to put too much dialogue in their mouths. It is important that they speak as they do. The script is just a map, Dhont said.
Émilie Dequenne said that the director has a very special touch on the recording.
– Lukas is always looking for something private. Most often, we actors keep track of the situation through technology. But Lukas works in a different way, which means that we do not have the same control as in other films. There is so much room for spontaneity, said Émilie Dequenne, who played the title role in the Palme d’Or winner “Rosetta” almost 25 years ago.
“Close” has been acquired by the hot film company A-24, which is behind films such as “Everything everywhere all at once”, “Midsummer” and the Oscar winner “Moonlight”.
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