promotion

ven in France, the opening scene of Lila Says, in which a pretty French teenager
asks, "Would you like to see my pussy?" has caused a bit of a stir.
Ziad Doueiri's film, based on a controversial 1996 French novel in which
an angelic blond mystifies a shy Arab boy named Chimo with her sexual fantasies,
manages to be explicit without actually showing anything. This might come as
a surprise for those familiar with the Lebanese Doueiri's career: Though
Lila Says is only his second film (after 1997's acclaimed West Beirut),
he was a cameraman in Hollywood for many years, working on Quentin Tarantino's
early movies.

   
Doueiri's work is distinguished by a lush, fluid camerawork, placing him
in direct contrast to the herky-jerky handheld style of most international filmmaking
today. He shoots Lila in wide-angle close-ups that bring us close to her face
while always keeping her background in focus, and the effect is decidedly unreal.
In the director's hands, the lower-class setting of the film becomes a
mystical place where anything is possible. That's not to say that it's
apart from reality: The film is also full of casual references to September 11th,
the war in Iraq, and the Middle East crisis; Al-Jazeera always seems to be on
in the background. Those looking for political subtext, however, will be frustrated.
As in West Beirut, Doueiri's characters see politics as something of a
nuisance. "Between pussy and a free Palestine," Chimo declares proudly, "I'd
choose pussy." — Bilge Ebiri
Ziad, given a choice between pussy and a free Palestine, which would YOU choose?

Hmm. Uh . . . [Laughs]
Come on, surely you've been asked that question before!

Not really. People are so politically correct today that nobody asks that. It's
taboo to talk about both of them. When the word "pussy" comes out
of my mouth, it's a lot different than when it comes out of the mouth of
Lila or Chimo.
And yet, your film straddles the line between adolescent sexuality and adult
sexuality. We never really feel dirty watching it, or hearing Lila talk this
way.

We tried to push the dialogue to the limit without falling into vulgarity. I
was always worried that maybe I was getting too used to the words. The producers
and I had a tremendous fight about that; they wanted me to remove the erotic
lines. And casting only added to my fear. Almost none of the girls who came could
read the part right. It felt cheesy, sleazy and unnatural. I kept believing it
was just a matter of performance.
How so?

Lila had to say, "Would you like to see my pussy?" as if she were
asking "Would you like a cup of coffee?" It was about working with
the actress to make sure she didn't deliver those lines in a vulgar way.

This offhand, casual attitude towards sexuality for some reason reminded me of
the way Quentin Tarantino's characters talk about violence. So I was surprised
to then find out that you'd actually been his camera operator for many
years.

Whether Quentin has had an influence on me is a legitimate question. But I fundamentally
believe that he and I make very different kinds of cinema. His influence on me
is not his formula, it's other things — it's the way he was on set,
the way he dealt with actors. He was always enthusiastic about what he was doing.
He obtained the best out of his crew and actors because he was always a kid on
set. He's a compulsive person, and his characters are very compulsive.
And I'm compulsive, too, and so are my characters. The characters in West Beirut are very talkative, and so is Lila. You could probably draw some comparisons,
but it's not intentional. Quentin makes American movies. And I lived and
worked in America for eighteen years of my life, so some of the humor in Lila Says is American, even though the film is not an American movie.

Could a film like Lila Says be made in America?

I originally wrote it for the U.S. While promoting West Beirut, I discovered
the Lebanese community in Dearborn, Michigan. I felt it would be interesting
to have an American film told from an Arab immigrant perspective. They've
done it about the Mexicans, the Irish and the Italians — why not the Arabs?
So we started writing the script in English. That version was more politically
charged — I wanted to explore the social consequences of 9/11. The producers
who read it loved it, but they said, "Look, it has a lot of sex, a lot
of erotica. Go do it in France!" So I had to tone down some of the political
stuff and push it more to the background. I still think it could have been a
great film in the U.S. Ironically enough, when the film came out in France, a
lot of people looked at it and said, "This isn't a French film. This
is an American film made in French."
That's very surprising to hear.

Well, the story has a very classical structure, which people think of as American.
You have your character arcs, your plot turns, your resolution, your violent
conflicts. Structure works. The distributor thought he could sell it everywhere
in Europe, but not in France.

How have Muslim audiences reacted to the film?

I was amazed — they received it extremely well. It played in Morocco and caused
a riot. People loved it. I think they liked the Chimo character: "Wow,
this is one of us, and he's the hero of the movie. He's handsome.
The gorgeous blond girl is after him!" In Lebanon, the film was number
two at the box office. I've seen a lot of veiled women coming to the theater,
too. I think people are responding to the sensuality, and also to the central
character's relationship with his mother, which is very close and warm.
What about the political angle?

Well, the characters in the film have a fairly light-hearted way of referring
to certain things, like, "the motherfuckers who blew up New York" and
when they say of Lila, "this girl could cause a jihad," I think the
audiences understand to take that lightly. Hearing Chimo say things like that,
you understand he's liberal, he's open minded. Dramatically speaking,
you just have to situate your character in his environment.

His cavalier attitude to politics also reminds me of West Beirut. Even though
your two films are very different in of setting and characters, there's
a strange continuum between the two. Chimo feels like he could be Tarek from
West Beirut a couple of years later.

When you write, you always inject some of you in your characters. In West Beirut,
I was remembering what it was like to be a teenager. For Lila Says, I tried to
identify with the character. I thought, "How would Ziad Doueiri react in
this circumstance, if a girl like this landed in his lap?"
Have you ever known a girl like Lila?

No. Never. I wish!


I went to see Lila Says in a theater last night, and was surprised to see a lot
of couples there, and some were even making out as if it were a date movie.

Really? I didn't think of it as a date movie at all. Wherever we showed
the film, a lot of adults came to see it. But I think maybe men are a little
intimidated by someone like Lila. In general, the film appeals a bit more to
women, maybe because it deals with the female sexual persona. I co-wrote the
film with a woman, and discovered that the nature of Lila's fantasies is
very female, even though most women would not say it in public.
How are these fantasies female?

I think mostly the mental process involved. When I started writing Lila, I decided
to do something that was not primarily visual. I love films like Intimacy, or
the work of Catherine Breillat, but I wanted to go in a different direction —
to see if I could get the point acrossjust by talking about it. The audience
wants to see: We're visual people, we're voyeurs. How often do you
hear, "A picture is worth a thousand words"? I wanted to tell a story
where a word is worth a thousand pictures.

It seems that sex in cinema has been undergoing a resurgence in the last few
years.

Film can permit itself to have limitless boundaries. Forgive me if I get a little
philosophical on you now, but I think September 11th broke a lot of taboos. The
shock of it was so big all over the world that I think people now say, "Fuck
it, I'll do what I want." It's not a conscious thing, but I
think we're now open to more risqué subjects. n°

 
©2005 Bilge Ebiri hooksexup.com.