«The actor is the character»: interview with Bruno Dumont The director and screenwriter of Red Rocks, a film presented in the Quinzaine des cinéastes section at the Cannes Film Festival

Watching Red Rocks, the new film by French director Bruno Dumont, competing in the Quinzaine des cinéastes, the parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival, one question immediately comes to mind: what came first, the story or the rocks? «It came from watching children diving into the water», replies the director and screenwriter, whose locations ranged from the French Riviera to Friuli-Venezia Giulia, with the film also featuring an Italian co-production. Adopting a semi-documentary approach, the film tells the story of a group of children spending their summer challenging each other by jumping off the steep cliffs of the red rocks that give the work its title. A season made of swimsuits, sea and salt air, where small rivalries and affections unfold, bringing back memories of what we were like as children, of summers spent under the sun and games shared with friends.

«It’s not a biographical film», Dumont is keen to point out, even though childhood resonates as something personal simply because anyone can relate to it through memories of their own. «I come from the north of France, while here we were in the south. But I believe that we all carry a child inside us, I’m sure of it. When watching a film, it’s natural to think about one’s own childhood, which can also be rediscovered in a work that actually speaks on a universal level. Even now that I’m getting older, the child inside me remains. It’s inevitable that a very young consciousness continues to live within us. I find that fascinating, and that’s what I wanted to capture on film», he continues.

Supporting him in the process was his encounter with the film’s young actors, who in some way contributed to shaping the story: «While writing, the hardest thing was imagining like a child. At first these characters didn’t exist, but when I met the children who would play them, I started to see them. I met Kaylon Lancel, the boy who plays Géo, three years ago. I tried to make him embody the character I had written, but I knew it would never be a perfect match. I understood that the construction couldn’t remain vague, I had to start specifically from him, from Géo. It’s a process I’m familiar with, since I often work with non-professional actors. Over the years I’ve understood that, as in this case, the actor is the character. So what we really needed was time to get to know each other, to move away slightly from the script and progress through discovering these children. The film took two years to make, but the biggest challenge was never working with them, it was working on myself and my imagination».

This way of fully absorbing the characters inevitably brought out a naturalness in the very young actors, which in the film is also expressed through the constant affection and physical closeness they show each other, never holding back from hugs and contact. «I wanted to stay within the children’s world», explains the filmmaker, «I didn’t want and shouldn’t have pushed them to do anything else. The time I mentioned was also used to study the way they interacted with each other. I soon noticed that they tended to hug each other a lot. In the screenplay things even went a little further, but it wasn’t possible to include it in the film. I learned a lot and, among those lessons, there was respecting their childhood. And in childhood there are many hugs. It would have been counterproductive to project my adult vision onto them. After all, they are very young characters, and it was right to remain at their level and, in that condition, it became easy for the children to connect physically with one another as well».

That freedom, however, was not necessarily synonymous with improvisation: «There was some, but it was actually a very structured process. They wore earpieces through which I could direct them. It was a sort of mix. Then there are the unexpected moments, which you can see reflected in their expressions, but for the rest of the time they were guided. Because, after all, this is cinema, and in that moment they were actors playing a role. That’s why it was essential to find children who enjoyed performing, who had fun doing it». And in Red Rocks they do so against the backdrop of a magnificent natural landscape, becoming almost one with it through their dives and climbs.