The mechanisms of manipulation, power relations, abuse and racism fly over the new film by Stephane Demoustier, Borgoinspired by a real event, a double murder in which a prison officer was involved. In fiction, the filmmaker plays with noir and police films, with social cinema and a bit of comedy, to create a realistic portrait that wonders about the radical changes in the destiny of a human being.
Starring by Hafsia Herzi and with actors from Corsica, the film tells the story of a woman, Melissa, a prison guard, who in her new destination, a prison in Corsica, meets a young inmate who helps her orient herself and offers her protection, but he expects help in return.
Borgoa prison thriller that despises the clichés of the genre, reflects the reality of mafias in Corsican prisons, in which inmates are allowed a regime of certain freedom within some modules.
The film is based on a real event, there was a double murder in which a prison official was involved, but its interest beyond the fact is to tell the mechanisms of manipulation, talk about mafias in prisons, portray Corsica…?
I was interested in showing how this change can occur in a person. A normal worker who becomes a criminal. Manipulation does exist, but not with someone who was destined for it, but with a woman who has a normal life and who a few months later turns into something different. Another thing I wanted to show is that no one commits evil knowing that they are going to do it. We have options and sometimes we have bad options. And I did want to explore those mechanisms, because this can happen. I try to understand the reasons and not agree with people.
Does the film want to talk about the fragility of balance in life?
Yes, absolutely, that fragility also shows that all beings are crossed by movements that can be contradictory and contrary. And that complexity means that we all have pulsations that can be violent, dark. Beings cannot be reduced to a single color. The circumstances of life act on this woman and that is why it was very important to place her in a very imprecise, but very interesting, social context. She is strong, but she is also vulnerable due to the economic situation, due to her immigrant status.
Speaking of social context, the film shows the racism that exists in France, the precarious situation of immigrants, crime…
Racism exists, unfortunately, throughout France and also in Corsica. I was interested in people who enter a territory where they are foreigners, but where they want to find their place. That desire to find her place makes her, at a given moment, make a pact with those men. The fact of taking a French woman of North African origin and placing her there, where racism is exacerbated, allows us to underline her quality as a foreigner. It is something that we have all been able to experience, it is something common to all.
Corsica appears as a hostile territory in his film…
Because I wanted to overcome the image, the label, the postcard… I wanted to turn that around and explore reality more. For example, the inmates in prison have a certain humanity, they have sweetness, charm, they have an endearing humor, which also shows the absurdity of reducing them to a bunch of inmates, bandits, although without being complacent, just demonstrating reality.
Borgo is film noir, it is police, social film, there is comedy, prison film, is all this done on purpose? And how is the balance of all these genres achieved?
I like the genre, but I also like it to turn it around. It is true that all these elements are present and when mixed they become enriched. A social drama is stronger with humor… The mix is in the human condition. Here we see the reaction of a woman, we see that couple of police officers, who are not like the police officers in the movies, because in police movies the problems are solved in a moment and here we see that it is much more complicated and that it has a lot to do with it. with the nooks and crannies of the human being. And within this it seemed to me that there was a certain comedy, due to the situation and his inability to solve the problems.
This is the story of a woman in a territory of men. Does it help you talk about the historical abuse of women, inequality, the use of brute force and violence against women…?
It was not a conscious idea when I considered that film, but it is inevitable that when a woman enters a story, themes such as imbalance, inequality, a form of vulnerability appear… In the film there is a lot of talk about that and also about the relationships of strength, in which it does not matter whether you are a woman or a man. The character in the film has a strong character, but that in a way weakens her… I didn’t want her to be just a victim, I like that in the end she resists, that she has resources, that she rebels a little against what happens to her and what can be a victim.
He makes a portrait of the mafias in prisons and, specifically, shows a peculiar situation of the prisons in Corsica.
I didn’t research it, but I did learn a lot about the reality of the Corsican prison. This model of open galleries works as seen in the film and only exists in France, where they grant that freedom of operation to prisoners. In the case of Corsica, in prison they are all Corsicans. I felt comfortable making this film because it is the story of someone who is not Corsican, who arrives there and does not understand much, there are many things that escape him, as happens to me. There are certain complexities in the functioning of mafias, there are opposing groups and games of force, but there is also a certain pact within prisons. The mafia reality in Corsica is old. There are many pro-independence supporters there and it is they themselves who have proposed these rules. In prison, the nature of the inmate population has little to do with what happens on the continent, in France.
It seems that, by telling the story in two parts, the element of tension that the story could have is deliberately boycotted to focus on the character’s destiny.
Yes, although the fact of conceiving the film with two different times is a gamble, I didn’t know if it was going to work or not, I wasn’t sure that the viewer would understand. I wanted to do it because I like films that leave a lot of room for spectators, active spectators. Furthermore, more than what is going to happen, what is important is the why and the how.
Is the mafia’s manipulation of this woman a reflection of the daily blackmail that we all suffer?
Yes, it is the manipulation system and it is also a reflection of the power relations that exist in professional and private life. What interested me there was to show that even the inmates obey others, she obeys others too, in everything there is a hierarchical relationship that is imposed on those below.
The camera follows the character, but also shows Corsica in a somewhat arid way…
I wanted to break the aesthetic codes to better tell that territory. And, as for the character, inside the prison the shots are very fluid, because there she feels freer, there is something sweeter, but when she is outside she is more controlled, because in prison she is the one who watches.
You play with genres in your films, distancing yourself from the way series are accustoming us to. Does today’s cinema need to move further away from this?
For me it is important to break the frenetic pace of the images that we are consuming in the press, on the phone, on social networks. And cinema has to question the meaning of those images. We must propose another relationship with time. When we do that and make films, we change dimensions and a film can propose another type of time, another type of look, propose a different staging.
Did you film in a prison that is already closed, could you not or did not want to do it in an open one?
We didn’t have permission, we didn’t shoot in the studio either. We film inside an abandoned prison that is going to become something else soon. For me, that enriches the film and helps in the staging with the actors.
There are natural Corsican actors in the story, was that your idea from the beginning?
All Corsican actors are natural. That was part of the project. When we make a film in a territory, we look for people there. I wanted to launch the film with things that come, with his language, with his way of moving, his body, his expressions. They are people who are rarely seen in cinemas and I thought I should introduce them.
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