2024-09-18 12:55:49
Is it a burden to be a woman? French director Coralie Fargeat thinks yes. This is why he made a film in which blood, mucus and vomit spray in all directions. A conversation about beauty ideas and the real enemy of every woman.
“The Thing” is one of the few films that received a thunderous greeting at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, not only after the credits but also during the screening itself. French screenplay award winner born in 1976 Coralie Fargeat (“Revenge”) joins American Hollywood stars Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, who play the same person in young and old parts. The director and screenwriter joins us via Zoom for a conversation about the award-winning body horror film, which is now showing in cinemas.
WORLD: “The Thing” is a film with a clear stance on youth and beauty fetishes. How would you describe your message?
Coralie Fargeat: The film deals with the violence that comes from all the beauty techniques around us. It’s almost like being in a prison. They make us feel that we are not good enough, no matter what we look like, no matter how old we are. We want to show the violence these processes do to us. You are constantly struggling with this perfect idea instead of trying to express yourself in a more powerful way. Hopefully the movie works as a step into this house of cards.
WORLD: One of the important things about his film is that the protagonist and antagonist are one and the same person. So our greatest enemy is not society, but rather our own demands?
Fargeat: I feel that everything about society causes us to create a negative image of ourselves. You have to fight against yourself because everything around you makes you feel like you’re not good enough. You put in this message. Even as an educated man or woman, it is very difficult to escape from all these representations. This is how our enemy grows in us, who will become the second voice. He would whisper in your ear, “You’re not good enough.” Society shapes our own monsters in a very powerful way. We have been imagining the male, which has set the image of the perfect woman since the beginning of humanity, whether we like it or not.
WORLD: The object in his film is a liquid that the protagonist puts under his skin to look younger. The similarity to real things like Botox or hyaluronic acid cannot be noticed. Both are currently popular in Hollywood – and they are even celebrated there as female acts of self-determination. How do you feel about this?
Fargeat: Women should be free to do whatever they want with their body and face without anyone commenting. Since childhood you have been told that all these wonderful things are there to change your breasts. Botox is another iteration of this. The real problem for me is that everything a woman is doing, whether it’s cosmetic surgery or not, is wrong. My message will be: Leave us and each other alone! We are in debt or not in debt whether we are in zero or not.
WORLD: Currently many films are being released that wear social criticism in the form of horror. Most recently, “Blink Twice” was released about sexual violence and before that “Get Out” about racism. What is the function of terror, or in the case of terror itself, to oppose injustice?
Fargeat: I recently saw something on my Reddit timeline that I really liked. They say: “Being a woman is a burden”. It really is. For me, a horror film is a very powerful way to use history to show the violence that society can do. Doing this in an informal way provides a great opportunity to express yourself freely and creatively. For me, movies have always been a very powerful form of political expression. Maybe it’s a zombie movie that portrays our fear of strangers or an alien movie that portrays our fear of war. I love the fact that these great comedy films criticize social systems in a clever way.
Marie Louise Goldman is a series and film critic in the WELT features section and holds a scholarship from the Munich Screen Workshop.
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