The director and star discuss the sexual and cultural themes the film explores.
Eva Husson’s latest movie Bang Gang: A Modern Story tells the story of group of French teenagers who boldly go through a “year of gang bangs,” and somewhat remarkably this story isn’t entirely made up. In 1996, a group of teenagers really did do just that, and it’s the effects and the journey that resulted which Husson fictionally explores.
Except in the hands of this smart director, their orgies transform into an art form. Set in an alluringly pristine suburb in southern France, the film has a gorgeous pink and blue glaze to it. Only it isn’t long before this unassuming idyll is disrupted by a mob of tender, soft nymphs who come together for a furious flurry of self-exploring sex parties.
The modern Riviera lifestyle of sex and selfies that they forge in this process is full of nudeness and freedom, but it is certainly never easy for those teenagers involved either. Husson’s film is therefore definitely a serious one, looking deeply at the fleetingness and new frontiers that are emerging in an age of increasing internet culture and smart technology.
So Cinema Jam got talking to Husson (below) and lead actor Finnegan Oldfield (above) about how easy it was to explore this generation’s new attitudes to sex ahead of Bang Gang’s release in UK cinemas this June.
Finnegan, do you think Eva has managed to capture your generation of French youth and do it justice in Bang Gang?
Finnegan Oldfield: Erm…I think the movie is filmed in quite a beautiful and realistic way, but it definitely doesn’t show my reality. I mean don’t get me wrong, it probably is a reality I dreamed of when I was younger – and that’s the honest truth [Eva laughs].
You know what I mean, though? It looks like an easy party, you know? All that easy going with people, it’s definitely the sort of thing I probably dreamed about. And in our movie, it seems really easy, really natural. But yeah, I’ve never had this kind of party in Paris…
Would you agree with that, Eva?
Eva Husson: Yeah. I would say that my film is a very extreme version of reality. And it’s a version of reality that 99% of young people in France won’t recognise. However, that’s why it was interesting to me. I thought it would be very intriguing to explore something that intense, that extreme.
I wanted to talk about adolescence and how things can go so far during that time. The way that, you know, all those kinds of things build your identity as an adult. It was that process that I was really interested in.
Does it take a lot of courage, though, to make a film about adolescent sexuality like this? For both of you?
Eva: No. Honestly this is not courage. Going to the front of a war and being there in the middle of all that, that’s courage. Making a film is not courage.
Finnegan: It is more about trust, you know? To trust each other, and know each other.
Eva: Yeah.
Finnegan: I think that the struggle starts between us. We had to meet lots, speak lots about the movie, about who we are going to be in it and that sort of thing. That doesn’t take courage as such, you just really have to know you’re working as part of a good time.
Eva: And I think when you are a filmmaker or writer, you just have things that sort of bug you, and you have to scratch those itches. It’s just like, “what is this? Why am I so interested in this?” I think for me, exploring these kinds of taboos or limits is definitely something that I am very interested in.
It is more about trust, you know? To trust each other, and know each other.”
But how challenging was it to make those kinds of topics artistic and seem intimate?
Eva: How did I make it artistic?
It seemed to me like your cinematography was really specific. You had so much pink and blue going on, you a really beautiful kind of colour scheme going on.
Eva: Mm-hmm. Well, first of all I didn’t want my discussion of these topics in the film to be crude. I didn’t want it to be full-frontal, because for me this is pornography. Pornography is in your face. I wanted to strip this back, and focus more on the sense of self that these kids have – then the focus would be much more on the trajectory that causes these kinds of things.
If you think about a movie like Boogie Nights by P.T. Anderson, for example, it’s a movie about adults who work in the porn industry – but you would never think about the movie like this. You would think first about characters who go through this insane thing. You just remember that.
That was my main aim for this film: to make sure that, even though it was a lot about sex and naked bodies, that was never in the way. Actually, it’s funny if you really think about it, you don’t see that much in my film. It’s a lot more about what the scenes suggest, and what is implied, but you barely see anything.
That was my main aim for this film: to make sure that, even though it was a lot about sex and naked bodies, that was never in the way.”
So do you think in some ways you were almost too safe, then?
No. You know, I just didn’t want to be… I’m not a voyeur. I have no interest in that, because I think that’s already been done really well in film by other people. I think to go that way in 2016 wouldn’t be very interesting, in terms of filmmaking. So, I think what I thought would be interesting is the journey of the characters.
I think that might be why you think the scenes are artistic. I guess it’s just my point of view on what happens, and I was interested in the characters and how they get to where they do. In terms of the colours I used, I guess for me that’s just a little bit of a heightened reality. I think that everything is a little bit more intense when you’re a teenager, and everything just pops up a little bit more. I think that’s what I wanted to be reflected in the visual aesthetic of the film.
But was it hard for you as an actor, Finnegan, to be in these kinds of sex scenes?
Finnegan: Well, I started to act for films when I was ten, so making a film was not so scary. But it was the first time for me, if you’re talking about sex scenes. In fact, it was my first real experience I had of kissing like…
Eva: He was a virgin! [Laughs teasingly].
Finnegan: Yes, yes, yes. I meant the first time I did something like this in film. in the cinema, the cinema! I mean, I had had some kissing scenes, but it was never like this…it was just like a little bit, here and there. So yeah, this was just like, kind of a new first experience for me.
Since it was my first time doing this kind of thing on set, I did find I was quite shy about it. I was wondering about it: how it was going to be, or what it would be like to watch in the cinema for the first time – that kind of thing.
I was, for a while, thinking, “I’m not going to do it. I’m just not,” you know? But then I just grew up, and I realised that this is just something that you quite often have to do if you’re an actor. You know, you have to know how to pass the cup, no? But I was quite afraid about possibly finding a bad person. A kind of perverted director or something.
So how did you overcome that?
Finnegan: I think you have to grow to trust someone first. You have to get a chance to trust the people – and the person – you’re going to do it with. So that’s why I asked for lots of the meetings first. It was really important for me to really know, to reassure myself that it is going to be okay. But in reality, there’s also no…I mean, okay, there are some deep and intimate scenes, but I’m not so naked in the film.
But yeah, you really just have to reach a stage where you know what you’re going to have to make, and be okay with it.
In depicting this kind of sex culture, did either of you ever feel like you were tapping into a sort of libertine, French aristocratic tradition too? Your characters do seem quite affluent and decadent.
Eva: But they’re not aristocratic at all! They’re very middle-class. There is a big difference. I mean, I guess it’s like England – there is a big difference in upbringing between these kinds of classes. I didn’t want them to be so lost in their money that you’d be like, “eurgh!”
If my characters were like that, I’d kill myself. I don’t care for those kinds of stories. I wanted my characters to be… I just wanted them to not have any specific reasons for doing what they do. They have parents who care, not parents who are always away on private jets. It’s not like that. The kids and the parents just don’t really know how to be, that’s what I wanted the point to be.
You really just have to reach a stage where you know what you’re going to have to make, and be okay with it.”
So you wanted them to seem more middle class?
Eva: Yeah. But they’re also just meant to be not exactly perfect families either, so that means they don’t really know how to teach each other the limits. I think that in a big part was my point, because there’s been a lot happening since the 1990s (or maybe even from the 70s, but I was not a teenager back then), and in those times you were just supposed to grow up and, you know, find your limits for yourself.
This was very much the case in specific liberal backgrounds in France, especially. It’s nice that it’s like this in many ways, but at the same time, it doesn’t necessarily make things easy when you’re growing up as a teenager. Sometimes a little bit of guidance is not a bad thing, you know?
That’s one point that is very concrete in my film, and it has nothing to do with decadence or the French being more into sex; because honestly, since making this film, I’ve heard stories about boarding schools going wild in Germany, in Belgium, in the UK, in the States. Anywhere where you have little strict background, you can push boundaries, so the events in this film can happen there as well, I think.
Do you think your compulsion to talk about this specific liberal, middle-class milieu caused your film also have a lack of diversity? Your cast is quite exclusively white, for example.
Eva: No, you know… I read a similar thing to this in a review once and I got pissed, because I say: you try to find black or Arab actors in the south of France. I did try, and it was really, really hard.
My casting director was of Moroccan decent actually, and I was saying to her that I really didn’t want an all-white cast. We tried so hard, but at one point I also had to draw the line, because if we couldn’t find actors who could act properly, then I couldn’t cast them.
So to people who have that issue with my film, I say go to the south of France. You’ll find it’s going to be quite white there. But also go and look at the rest of my work, because this really is something that’s quite important to me. I make quite a point of trying to not make a… [Laughs.] An all-white commercial.
So this is something you will be trying to passionately redress in you next film then?
Eva: Yeah! I have a project coming up about the war in Iraq and about women in war, actually. But during this process, I’ve realised that this next film is actually just another way to look at youth and the extreme situations that can take place during youth. But the second side to the story will also very much be about the situation we’re all now in globally following this war. I mean, I think you only have to have been living in Europe in the last few months to see that things have been quite intense…
Bang Gang is out in select cinemas on June 17th.
