Impression of the first viewer

Natal is the first viewer of Unfaithful. She watched a draft version and gives us her impressions in this text she wrote:

"Claude has successfully saved a first version of Unfaithful on a usb stick.

He gave it to me at the café "the ant".

He warned me: the image is tiny and it is too long.

I waited a few days. Then I opened the file: oh yes it is very small... I launched it and I watched.

Almost two hours later I stood before this small black window. The last scene is incredible.

I looked into it. I needed time to understand all the hazards and the traps avoided in this movie.

What I just watched does not look like anything I've seen before.

The intimacy is obvious. It comes from several factors that Claude has established. We talked about some of them together.

From the beginning, he invites us to participate in this quite confusing experiment, when he claims: "I ask you to have sex with me"...

He handles his power as director with delicacy and carefulness and reduces it.
First, he speaks softly to the actor and frequently asks if he's fine as if he was asking "do we go on?".
And he seems to mind what he shows when he moves his camera, as if he was checking if the viewer is well seated.

We do not feel like voyeurs ready to watch two dudes fucking. We are identified and invited as witnesses who almost act on the scenes by our presence.

The small disturbances he organizes, without aggression, question about what is currently happening, what is true, what is made up. He plays and make us play.

As privacy grows between those two characters, an intimacy is created between us and them.
We are connected to this experiment, we are part of it.

All of this, among other things, builds confidence in this trio, this almost "ménage à trois".

There is also intimacy of the bodies as they strip, get dressed, strip again.
The desire is expressed through the Nudes without hiding, sometimes despite themselves. They come to contradict the lines or to improve them. They have their own
language ready to betray or exceed words. I understand what sex allows here.

I do not want to reveal too much what happens, but I wonder what Claude is going to cut.

Natal"


Mood:


Google request: "best blowjob in mainstream movie"

Do you want to be faithful to Unfaithful? (click...)

Natal Haziza on the film set of Unfaithful

Do you want to be faithful to Unfaithful?

Portrait : Natal Haziza

Natal Haziza works as a producer within Hystérie prod and produced many films, like One night stand by Emile Jouvet.
She directed several short movies and a documentary: Biliga.

She is unit production manager on Unfaithful.

www.myspace.com/hysterieprod

choosing an actor

I met Natal. I updated her on the project. And then at one point she said: "How you gonna do to choose the actor? Want to hold a casting session?"

I widely open my eyes. No, actually, I think I frown. No, no, definitely not. No, I do not want that kind of relationship with the actors, choosing them from a catalog... it's childish, isn't it? I laughed.

No, I will not define the criteria and choose the one that comes closest to my idea. I do not use someone to make my movie look good. Oups. I want to be overwhelmed by the film, so...

It interests me a lot to question the relationship with the actor, to let him be free and autonomous, let him surprise me. There is something to dig out there. I guess it is very political. I laughed even more.

Natal said nothing. She listened. She smiled. She drunk her coffee slowly enough. I do not know if she likes coffee or if she chose it because she likes even less the other drinks.

I shall not dwell on the political issue. This is important, but not a sufficient reason to make a film, it can't be more than a means, you won't probably see it in the film anyway.

I went on. The most important thing is to create the conditions for something to happen, not to create something from nothing by asking someone to do things he would never do for real.

If the film stumbles, if it fails, it is not bad.

So I'll meet some people, see if we hit it off.

Natal ended by saying: "But you will have to choose though, won't you? "

Yes. We smiled.

First, I won't choose someone I like. I don't make a film to put someone in my bed. I hesitate to say that I do not need to make a film for this, but I keep this idea for me. If I do not like him, it can even reassure me. But I won't think about it anyway.

Then I won't know what the actor is ready to do or not, not to select on this criterion either. If he's up for everything or refuses everything, that's not of my busyness, I will find it out during the shooting. I conceived the script to let the actor as free as possible.

Natal listened carefully. When she focuses, she looks tough.

I think I would prefer someone who is comfortable with his body and his sexuality. Because I do not want to force an actor or trap him or put him in a situation he couldn't handle. And also because I do not want to raise moral issues that necessarily arise with someone who has not resolved a number of things. There are questions that were asked more than... I count: 40 years, we must move on to other things now. See if we can get onto sex in a more serene way perhaps. Or not. It will be interesting to see that we can't too. I do not know.

And then I'd prefer someone who isn't focus on sex and who doesn't make people focus on it either. Sex is a means, this is not the purpose of the film, we must think of something else quite quickly.

Natal smiled. She looked sweeter. I guess she nodded. She looked rather convinced. Perhaps she wondered what will outcome of it. I suppose that doubts cross her mind some times. But she carefully pick up in her questions, the ones which could be helpful to the film.


Mood:

Critical turnaround

We scheduled an appointment with Natal at a table outside our café, surrounded by trees. The sun is shining. I have something really important to tell. I threw everything away. She raises her eyebrows, expects for explanation. I threw away the story, the lines... We didn't have much of it? We don't have it at all by now... I tighten the film. I get rid of everything fake and made up. I focus on what will really happen: the relationship between the director and actor.

She doesn't say anything. She thinks about it. She raises plenty of questions: "How are we going to organize it? With what are we going to make the film?" We keep the journey, the obstacle race with experiences, challenges. But we go much further. What will be shot is how we react to what happens, how we will respond and go through what happens.

She goes on: "It no longer speaks about love? It no longer refers to sex?" It speaks about a relationship between two people. They happen to be an actor and a director. I don't want to lie about that. This is a filmmaker who asks an actor to do something, not to play, or cheat, no... to do something for real: to make love with him. And then we'll see what happens. I do not know if the actor would desire me. I won't choose the actor according to my tastes, I do not know if I will desire him. I do not know if we'll can. I do not know whether or not it's easy to make love with someone you do not know, to establish complicity and confidence.

It speaks about my desire to make a movie, my desire to choose an actor, my desire or not to make love... it's all the same desire. It also speaks about how the actor reacts to my desire, wants to make love or not, etc...

Then it doesn't speak about something else than sex and love. We are not going to talk about it, but what we will do does. It can also be a failure. It may be a film about a meeting which is not happening, a relationship which doesn't match. It would raise the same issues.

We talk long. She raises many kinds of questions, considers every points, including details on some very concrete things: "But how it ends?" I do not know. We'll see if the meeting happens or not ... "How did you get the idea?" While talking to actors, thinking about it in a really concrete way, I realized that's what interests me. I want to throw all the theory away and head on in it...

She remains thoughtful. Her eyes are very focused, almost black, serious. And then she said: "Actually, this is what you want to do from the beginning... and now you frankly go straight to the point. This is great!"

Mood:

A working session with Natal

We often meet with Natal to take bearings.

She has already receives many, many different versions of the script.

She carefully keeps up with the progress step after step. She surprisingly even remember sometimes a detail of a previous version.

She is not intrusive. She lets me do things in my way.

And sometmes, she points out something which doesn't seem clear or precise enough. Or she raises a question about something I knew I should work harder on.

She gives no clue. She doesn't interfere. She just underlines in a really gentle and relevant way.

She doesn't express what she prefers. It's up to me to guess so far: no too much theory, no unnecessary provocation, no unnecessary delicacy either... that kind of things.

There are things she is the only one to know, some anecdotes, some secrets ... There are also things that even she doesn't know.

We meet quiet often. In the beginning we tried a new café each time. We landed in more than a dozen. Than we get accustomed to sitting outside one café with trees all around.

Throughout our meetings, she speaks and listens without any notes, no paper, nothing. It looks like she came without preparing anything.

She does not rush me.

I talk a lot. I happen to think I talk too much. I don't let her enough room.

I often ask het to be more specific.

At the end of a meeting, I often say: "something else?" And this is at this very precise moment that every time she takes out a pile of papers covered with her notes. She glances through it to check if she hasn't forgotten something: "We saw that ... we did it ... ah yes, this!..."

For a long time, more than a year, we don't speak about something else than our project or cinema. We have no idea of who we are, what we live, how we deal with stuff.

And litlle by little, we drop some anecdotes. We get more confomrtable. At one moment, she is talking about her and suddenly stops: "You never get personal, don't you? I smile.

We get to know each other.

Mood:

Meeting Natal

I received a message from Natal, who produced, with Hystery prod, "One Night Stand" by Emilie Jouvet. She just saw my film "Missed" in a festival. She loved it. Good thing, I want to work with this production... We decided to meet.

This is the night. We meet in a café. I arrive the first. I choose a quiet place. I would be more comfortable if everyone did not hear what I have to tell.

She arrives. She is very gentle, very simple. A child's face, the oval quite rounded, the eyes slightly restrained. She looks a bit naive. The voice quiet and pretty safe. I assume she must be stubborn sometimes.

We talk a little. She spoke of "Missed", of my voice. I smiled. I want to say : "yes, I'm an actor too", but I say nothing.

She seems impatient to begin. I'm pretty sure she is going to ask what we are waiting when I say: "We order our coffee and then we start, ok?". It answered the question she was close to ask. I see it in her way to nod.

We smiled.

People come sit next to us. I wanted to be quiet ... Too bad.

I take my step outline and I begin to read. Here I come in a tunnel over an hour during which I read, I punctuate, I explain. I am alone here. I'm slogging a bit. But her enthusiastic reactions, her pensive air, her playful eyes encourage me. It seems to ring a bell to her.

She listened, asked for details and does not say what she really thinks. But she seems to understand the need I have to try to get onto sex in a different way, to use dark and light and to try to conceive an other method of work, for artistic and political reasons.

I also show her notes, plans of all colors that I use to work on the rhythm ... It amuses her.

She asks me what I need. I said, "no money, it is important to make a film without money, to see what can be done without resources. The resources are something for lazy people who believe that it replaces work. No, I need a look from the outside to write and then to be supported for the production or distribution... "

I have the feeling that I was able to share my enthusiasm, and actually I am genuinely enthusiastic.

Now I'm tired.

She will think about it. We are done for this time.

Mood: