Movies
[Interview] Bertrand Mandico on ‘She is Conann’
After seeing She is Conann at the Brooklyn Horror Film Fest, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The film transported me to other planes of existence, and left me with a bunch of questions about the world She is Conann takes place in. Who would be better to answer these questions than the writer and director of the film, Bertrand Mandico.
*All of Mandico’s answers have been translated from French.
Exploring Surrealism in She is Conann: Bertrand Mandico’s Influences
She is Conann is very surreal, from its ethereal environments to its dream-like narrative. What is your connection to surrealism? Who are your influences, and do you view yourself as growing from the tradition of French surrealism in visual art in the 1920s?
The origin and heritage of surrealism fascinates me. Already, many artists precede surrealism, the symbolists: Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, William Blake, and Comte de Lautréamont. They had a very strong influence on the writing of Conann. Of course, the surrealists like Bunuel, Ernst, and Cocteau (even if he was not part of the movement) fulfilled me. And also especially the women of surrealism:
Léonore Fini, Dorothea Tanning… The heirs and heiresses that are found in film, literature, and comics: J G Ballad, Cindy Sherman, Paul Grimault, Charles Burns, the Chapman brothers…
The vision of surrealism spans the ages. It is a movement that has been activated and conceptualized by André Breton before WWI.
But this constant concept is in perpetual mutation. Its influence continues to nourish the arts. Surrealism is a black angel of imagination. It reappears before each scourge.
I was very struck by the gender nonconformity in She is Conann. The scene that stood out to me the most is when Rainer says he is becoming a barbarian and shows that he has grown breasts. What is the significance of this scene? What was the meaning behind choosing a woman to play Rainer?
Rainer is not gendered. He is all sexes. He is fascinated by Conann, he wants to be like her and to seduce her. I offered the role to Elina Löwensohn because I knew she would create a complex and ambiguous demon. I like to give actresses singular and unusual roles, not stereotypes, the roles that are usually given to men.
You’ve made a short film about Rainer. Can you tell me a little bit about the origin of his character?
Rainer is a demon with the head of a dog with an appearance reminiscent of R.W. Fassbinder (a filmmaker I revere). In different beliefs, the dog is the ferryman, the one who can go to the otherworld, the world of the dead. I wanted Rainer to have a modern look, that of a photographer of fashion and of war, a person who feeds on flesh. Originally, there was the Celtic myth of Conan, who inspired Howard for the novels. The Conan of Celtic legends is surrounded by Fomoires (hellhounds), demons with the head of a dog. I am partial to the original image, to the mythology. In my film, Rainer accompanies Conann in her damnation and the more Conann dehumanizes herself, the more Rainer is humanized and lets his romanticism show. The first time I filmed Rainer for the theater was for a short film. He makes a Faustian pact with a director in lack of inspiration.
The film spends very little time on Conann’s mother, but as Conann ages, she grows wings mirroring the ones her mother grew when she abandoned Conann. What is the symbolism behind this?
The bat wings are there to represent a being who accesses a “superior” state. A sort of archaic angel. The wings are in reference to the fallen angel of John Milton and also Walter Benjamin’s angel of history. Conann has the possibility of becoming immortal, but she prefers to prolong her harmful influence otherwise, as for her mother, she is a martyr who calls for vengeance.
Initially, I wanted to make a vampire or succubus film, but I found that the subject is seen and seen again. And what interested me was working on barbarism, aging, betrayal of ideals, and old age who kills youth.
How did you make the decision to show most of the film in black and white? Can you talk about the significance of color?
I wanted to create a unity in the film which traverses eras and styles. Black and white unifies everything. We shot the whole film in an ancient steel factory at night. We pierced the darkness with light. We shot in 35mm and all the effects were done during filming. The black and white film attenuates carnal violence and magnifies the light. The color appears in two distinct ways, that of solace for the hell sequences and the meal sequence. I wanted to show hell with pastel colors which contrasts against the usual imagery of hell. Pastels are the colors of old age and early childhood, the colors of the cycle of life.
In contrast, there are inserts of warm and bold colors, they come to punctuate the film and bring flashes of violence, like Rothko animated.
As Conann matures, her barbarism changes. At 25, she is a warrior, at 35, a betrayer, at 45, a sadist; and at 55, a psychological terror. How did you come up with this progression for her?
I started from the most raw and primary barbarity: “revenge” while trying to imagine a crescendo of sophistication, harshness, and perversity over the ages and eras – as if the different decades dictated the trends. But it is a very arbitrary vision. I wanted the film to gain momentum, but for the spectator to never anticipate what was going to happen. The first victim of Conann is Conann, and she must be surprised at each transition to the next age, even if she expects to find her future in ambush.
It seems in her life Conann was revered and feared, but is now damned to wander without her memories in hell. Can you elaborate on this punishment? In the universe you’ve created is there a moral arbiter?
I was inspired by the divine comedy and the circles of hell, the damnations. Hell, in most beliefs, is being stuck in a loop of suffering and remorse, to be condemned to forget and recover memory, to relive harmful actions. The only thing that can save the barbarian is regret. Free will exists, it consists of taking another path when it appears, but it still needs to be seen. The deviations allow the avoidance of fatality.
The film is extremely focused on memory and personal history. Can you elaborate on why you think this is so important?
Memory is the engine of the story. The memory of the original trauma – the death of the mother who provokes the desire for vengeance. The oblivion to escape her condition, the parenthesis. To modify collective memory to take power, install fascism, and finally recover her memory and her misdeeds, like a torture, the passage into the world of the dead. This question of the place of collective and personal memory is for me, a central question. The manipulation of memory is a tool for those who want to assert their power in an authoritative fashion. Also, dematerialization – the reliance on computers (which have their own problems of memory and storage) – the perpetual questioning of history, is a mistreatment of our memory, a weakening. It is a scourge that worries me and is the origin of many ills of our society.
The aesthetics of She is Conann reminded me heavily of films like The Neverending Story, The Labyrinth, and The Pagemaster with their otherworldly sets and fast-paced narratives. Are you influenced by these kinds of films?
Not really. I thought of Lola Montes by Max Ophuls for the structure of the movie. Michael Powell for fantasy. And then all the films that use the ellipses, for movement through time. Throughout the sequences, I invoke filmmakers like Fritz Lang, Kaneto Shindo, Klimov, Pasolini, Cocteau, Coppola etc… The journey into the history of the barbarian is also a journey into cinema.
She is Conann is incredibly queer from the character’s relationships to their bodies. You’ve said in previous interviews that your work is queer in the original sense of the word of challenging heteronormativity. Why is this important to you? Is it hard to make these films in the present times of bigotry against the LGBTQ+ community?
Because the Queer vision advances the narrative, breaks the clichés, deviates the imagination, and challenges censorship, it is an artistic and political choice, one does not go without the other. I’m trying to remain a free spirit. The original meaning of queer is synonymous with the freedom of mind and creation. I make films with a “modest” budget compared to the complexity of my ideas. I shot in 5 weeks in a unique location, which required us to be inventive and creative. Producing a film is never simple, the most important aspect is that it can reach the maximum number of spectators and touch their hearts.
She is Conann combines beauty with barbarity, having beautiful women as barbarians, and glitter in scenes of extreme violence. Why is there a softness to Conann’s world when she and her compatriots are so harsh?
I wanted to talk about a very hard subject, barbarism, by offering a disturbing spectacle, because I juggle between attraction and repulsion.
I try to create a formal distance so that the viewer can take cinematic pleasure by watching my films. The form must carry the substance, like a wave carries a boat and prevents it from sinking into the abyss of pathos. I am working on the shift to render the unpleasant as tolerable.
But barbarism has many faces, like my Conann(s). A brutal and primitive face. But also a gentle, reassuring face. Barbarism hides in the pageantry, the smiles, the festive, the impeccable clothes, the superficial politeness. It is the manicured power that looks good in the media while shamelessly crushing the weakest under their patent shoes.
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It’s always interesting to get a peak behind the curtain, especially in works that rely so heavily on symbolism and metaphor!
Keep your eye out, She is Conann officially releases November 29!
I was late to the Radio Silence party. However, I do not let that stop me from being one of the loudest people at the function now. I randomly decided to see Ready or Not in theaters one afternoon in 2019 and walked out a better person for it. The movie introduced me to the work of a team that would become some of my favorite current filmmakers. It also confirmed that getting married is the worst thing one can do. That felt very validating as someone who doesn’t buy into the needing to be married to be complete narrative.
Ready or Not is about a fucked up family with a fucked up tradition. The unassuming Grace (Samara Weaving) thinks her new in-laws are a bit weird. However, she’s blinded by love on her wedding day. She would never suspect that her groom, Alex (Mark O’Brien), would lead her into a deadly wedding night. So, she heads downstairs to play a game with the family, not knowing that they will be hunting her this evening. This is one of the many ways I am different from Grace. I watch enough of the news to know the husband should be the prime suspect, and I have been around long enough to know men are the worst. I also have a commitment phobia, so the idea of walking down the aisle gives me anxiety.
Grace Under Fire
Ready or Not is a horror comedy set on a wealthy family’s estate that got overshadowed by Knives Out. I have gone on record multiple times saying it’s the better movie. Sadly, because it has fewer actors who are household names, people are not ready to have that conversation. However, I’m taking up space this month to talk about catharsis, so let me get back on track. One of the many ways this movie is better than the latter is because of that sweet catharsis awaiting us at the end.
This movie puts Grace through it and then some. Weaving easily makes her one of the easiest final girls to root for over a decade too. From finding out the man she loves has betrayed her, to having to fight off the in-laws trying to kill her, as she is suddenly forced to fight to survive her wedding night. No one can say that Grace doesn’t earn that cigarette at the end of the film. As she sits on the stairs covered in the blood of what was supposed to be her new family, she is a relatable icon. As the unseen cop asks what happened to her, she simply says, “In-laws.” It’s a quick laugh before the credits roll, and “Love Me Tender” by Stereo Jane makes us dance and giggle in our seats.
Ready or Not Proves That Maybe She’s Better Off Alone
It is also a moment in which Grace is one of many women who survives marriage. She comes out of the other side beaten but not broken. Grace finally put herself, and her needs first, and can breathe again in a way she hasn’t since saying I do. She fought kids, her parents-in-law, and even her husband to escape with her life. She refused to be a victim, and with that cigarette, she is finally free and safe. Grace is back to being single, and that’s clearly for the best.
This Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy script is funny on the surface, even before you start digging into the subtext. The fact that Ready or Not is a movie where the happy ending is a woman being left alone is not wasted on me, though. While Grace thought being married would make her happy, she now has physical and emotional wounds to remind her that it’s okay to be alone.
One of the things I love about this current era of Radio Silence films is that the women in these projects are not the perfect victims. Whether it’s Ready or Not, Abigail, or Scream (2022), or Scream VI, the girls are fighting. They want to live, they are smart and resourceful, and they know that no one is coming to help them. That’s why I get excited whenever I see Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s names appear next to a Guy Busick co-written script. Those three have cracked the code to give us women protagonists that are badasses, and often more dangerous than their would-be killers when push comes to shove.
Ready or Not Proves That Commitment is Scarier Than Death
So, watching Grace run around this creepy family’s estate in her wedding dress is a vision. It’s also very much the opposite of what we expect when we see a bride. Wedding days are supposed to be champagne, friends, family, and trying to buy into the societal notion that being married is what we’re supposed to aspire to as AFABs. They start programming us pretty early that we have to learn to cook to feed future husbands and children.
The traditions of being given away by our fathers, and taking our husbands’ last name, are outdated patriarchal nonsense. Let’s not even get started on how some guys still ask for a woman’s father’s permission to propose. These practices tell us that we are not real people so much as pawns men pass off to each other. These are things that cause me to hyperventilate a little when people try to talk to me about settling down.
Marriage Ain’t For Everybody
I have a lot of beef with marriage propaganda. That’s why Ready or Not speaks to me on a bunch of levels that I find surprising and fresh. Most movies would have forced Grace and Alex to make up at the end to continue selling the idea that heterosexual romance is always the answer. Even in horror, the concept that “love will save the day” is shoved at us (glares at The Conjuring Universe). So, it’s cool to see a movie that understands women can be enough on their own. We don’t need a man to complete us, and most of the time, men do lead to more problems. While I am no longer a part-time smoker, I find myself inhaling and exhaling as Grace takes that puff at the end of the film. As a woman who loves being alone, it’s awesome to be seen this way.
The Cigarette of Singledom
We don’t need movies to validate our life choices. However, it’s nice to be acknowledged every so often. If for no other reason than to break up the routine. I’m so tired of seeing movies that feel like a guy and a girl making it work, no matter the odds, is admirable. Sometimes people are better when they separate, and sometimes divorce saves lives. So, I salute Grace and her cathartic cigarette at the end of her bloody ordeal.
I cannot wait to see what single shenanigans she gets into in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. I personally hope she inherited that money from the dead in-laws who tried her. She deserves to live her best single girl life on a beach somewhere. Grace’s marriage was a short one, but she learned a lot. She survived it, came out the other side stronger, richer, and knowing that marriage isn’t for everybody.
My New Year’s resolution is to spend more time watching my favorite app. Luckily, Shudder is not taking it easy on us this holiday season, so I may meet my quota this January. The streamer is bringing in the new year with quite a few bangers. We have classics from icons, a new title from the first family of indie horror, and a couple of lesser-known films that have finally found a home. So, I am obviously living for this month’s programming and think most of you will too. I have picked the five films that I believe deserve our collective attention the most. Get into each of them and start your 2026 off on the right foot.
The Best Movies to Stream on Shudder This Month
Carrie (1976)
A sheltered teen finally unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated for the last time. Carrie is the reason I thought proms might be cool when I was a kid. This Brian De Palma adaptation is one of my favorite Stephen King adaptations. It is also an important title in the good-for-her subgenre. I cannot help rooting for Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) when I watch her snap at this prom and then head home to accidentally deal with her mom. The only tragedy of this evening is that Carrie had to die, too. I said what I said, and I will be hitting play again while it is on Shudder. This recommendation goes out to the other recovering sheltered girls who would be the problem if they had powers. I see you because I am you.
You can watch Carrie on January 1st.
Marshmallow (2025)
A shy 12-year-old gets sent to summer camp and finds himself in a living nightmare. While Marshmallow did not land for me, I know plenty of people who love it. Which makes this the perfect addition to the Shudder catalogue. I am actually excited to see more folks fall in love with this movie when it hits the streamer. If nothing else, it will help a few folks cross off another 2025 title if they are still playing catch-up with last year’s movies. It also gets cool points from me for not taking the easy route with the mystery it built. I hope you all dig it more than I did, and tell your friends about it. Perhaps you could even encourage them to sign up for the app.
You can watch Marshmallow on January 1st.
Chain Reactions (2024)
Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre cemented his horror legacy over fifty years ago. So, it is long overdue for a documentary where horror royalty can discuss its impact on them and their careers. I have been waiting for a couple of years to hear Karyn Kusama and Takashi Miike talk about Hooper’s work and how he inspired them. So, I am super geeked that Shudder is finally giving me the chance to see this film. The streamer is also helping the nerds out by adding The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 (1986) this month. If you are also an overachieving couch potato, I will see you at the finish line next week.
You can watch Chain Reactions on January 9th.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
An insurance investigator discovers the impact a horror writer’s books have on people. I love chaos, and John Carpenter chaos happens to be one of my favorite kinds of chaos. While we talk about The Thing and Halloween all the time, this maestro has given us plenty of horror to celebrate. In the Mouth of Madness is very much one of those titles vying for a top spot among the best of his filmography. To sweeten the batshit pot, this movie features Sam Neill. You know that he only shows up in our genre if the movie is going to be legendary. You cannot tell me this is not a Shudder priority this month.
You can watch In the Mouth of Madness on January 10th.
Mother of Flies (2025)
A terminally ill young woman and her dad head to the woods to seek out a recluse who claims she can cure her cancer. The Adams Family has been holding court on Shudder for years, so it feels right that Mother of Flies is a Shudder Original. More importantly, this fest favorite has one of the best performances of 2025. Which makes it a great time for people to finally get to see it and get in line to give Toby Poser her flowers. Whatever you think your favorite Poser role is, it is about to change when you see her as Solveig. I am being serious when I say that this movie might be the first family of indie horror at their best.
You can watch Mother of Flies on January 23rd.
New year, but same Shudder. I would not want to go into 2026 any other way, personally. I hope these horrific recommendations bring you the good kind of anxiety. Or at least distract you from the state of the world for a bit.
‘Night Patrol’ Review: Vampiric Cop Horror Undone by Messy Execution
The 10 Most Satisfying Deaths in Horror Movies
‘28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ Review: Nia DaCosta Has the Cure
The Horror Press Podcast Episode 54: Heated Rivalry & Yahtzee
‘Sleepy Hollow’ Review: Seeing Really Is Believing
‘Ready or Not’ and the Cathartic Cigarette of a Relatable Final Girl
‘Carrie’ Review: A Look At Two Adaptations
The Best Horror You Can Stream on Shudder in January 2026
The Best Horror You Can Stream on Netflix in January 2026
‘The Taking of Deborah Logan’ Review: An Overlooked Gem
‘The People Under the Stairs’ Review: A Brilliantly Bizarre Horror Classic
Slappy Was the Blueprint: How the Dummy from Goosebumps Became A Horror Icon
‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ and The Story of William Afton Explained
Glen and Glenda: Don Mancini’s Reverence for Queerness in ‘Seed of Chucky’ (2004)
‘Truth or Dare’: Who Did it Best?
V/H/S Franchise Ranked, Best to Worst
Everything You Need to Know About Jason Voorhees
The 11 Most Disturbing Horror Movies Ever, According to an Actual Horror Fan
[REVIEW] ‘Cherry Falls’ (1999) Brittany Murphy Shines in This Cult Classic Slasher
