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!