Juliette Binoche: "Our society uses sex to sell everything"
Juliette Binoche in "The Better Life": "My character in the movie is a bit fucked-up." Journalist Anne goes through difficult times, especially in terms of sexuality. "
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: In "The Better Life" you interview as a journalist two students who earn their living as escort ladies. Did the film sensitize you to prostitution?
Juliette Binoche: I was shocked to see the documentary directed by Malgoska Szumowska. How can someone just prostitute? I have no answer. I find it dangerous, self-destructive and sad. If the girls really had the choice, they would not do that, I think. But: Who am I that I can judge about it?
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: The two women in the film seem very self-determined and do not see themselves as victims.
Juliette Binoche: Of course they are victims. They pretend that everything is okay and say that is only for a certain time and then I do something else, but in the movie, for example, you can see that Anais is not able to sleep with her boyfriend , Sex is used in our society to sell everything. As a young student you then think: why not me? I also want to be part of a society that has luxury goods, I want to belong and not be a poor girl. A sad situation.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: The journalist in the film is influenced by the story she writes. Do you know that from your work as an actress?
Juliette Binoche: Almost all of my characters trigger something in me because through them I learn more about myself. Sometimes you take on a role and initially do not really know why. You just feel like you have to play them. And in the end, you suddenly know why. Recently, under Bruno Dumont, I played the character of Camille Claudel, who was later in a psychiatric institution. In this figure you see: You need affection, you need attention, the human basics. Without stopping, a person can not grow up properly.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Why did you shoot "The Better Life"?
Juliette Binoche: Because I found the topic important. I do not like movies with message. This "look, it's all so hard, etc." I think I puke. But this movie gives no answers, I like that. It causes a bit of irritation and makes you think - about society, about love, about relationships. The younger son in the movie just sits in front of his computer games, the older kifft, the husband lives for work and watching porn. No one faces his emotions. Where is the relationship? All of these addictions are a means of not feeling themselves and others as much as possible.
Anne (Juliette Binoche) with her husband (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing)
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Do you consider the family from the movie to be a typical, modern family?
Juliette Binoche: Everything is chic in her apartment, everything is fine, the books are in the right place, the table too, everything is perfect, but there is a disturbance above all else.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Director Malgoska Szumowska sees a difference in how the older and younger generation deal with love and sex. The younger one could separate one from the other. Do you share this view?
Juliette Binoche: No, the ability to separate body and soul or body and heart has always existed. A challenge in life is to fathom one's own feelings and to stand by them. Of course it is easier to go outside, have a drink and have sex, but that does not bring you closer to your feelings.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: So pure sex can not gain insight?
Juliette Binoche: No, I think that when the body is a pure object, you do not get what the body is for. Of course, in a love relationship, you can play for your interests: can you do that, I do that - a ping-pong game. But I see love at a higher level, it's not about your own interests, it's about giving, and then you automatically get something back. The sexual energy of men and women is different, physically we are different anyway. We women are more the receivers, the men rather the doers. I believe that when the woman becomes active, it changes all the energy. We women are told to behave more like men, but in sex that does not work in my opinion.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: In the movie you have a masturbation scene. Do scenes like this particular courage require?
Juliette Binoche: When you start to make distinctions between nude scenes and other scenes, you get into trouble. As an actor you are committed to the project from beginning to end. I have to trust the director, otherwise I can not work. If I started to think, how do I do it now, where is the camera, what will that look like, what is the light, would that throw me into a traumatic situation.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: As an actress, have you become bolder over the years?
Juliette Binoche: I think I've always been pretty brave. When I think back to the sex scenes in "Rendez-vous", I was just 20 years old. I did not have to wait until now.
The film
Journalist Anne (Juliette Binoche) interviews two young part-time prostitutes about their lives and longings. And comes pondering about giving and taking their own bourgeois existence. "The better life" is a well-played and stressed unprejudiced film (much explicit sex!), Who only neglects to tell about his theses sometimes telling.
Juliette Binoche
The Frenchwoman Juliette Binoche (48) is at home in both art and mainstream cinema. For example, she starred in the popular successes "The English Patient" (Oscar for Best Supporting Actress) by Anthony Minghella or Lasse Hallström's "Chocolat" (Oscar nomination for Best Actress). In 2010 she won the Cannes Award for "The Love Counterfeiters" by Abbas Kiarostami. Juliette Binoche has a daughter from the relationship with fellow actor Benoît Magimel, with whom she was dating until 2003, and a son from a previous relationship.
