Jérémie Rénier: “I first made from one world to another to save myself”
For his overwhelming first documentary, the actor ventured into the Arctic to try to get up from the inconsolable sadness in which the death of his best friend Gaspard Ulliel left him. Meeting-confidences when he is presented today at the Cinéromoman festival.
Partners in the Saint-Laurent De Bonello, Gaspard Ulliel and Jérémie Rénier were much more than friends. True brothers. And the brutal disappearance of the first on January 19, 2022 in a ski accident left the second inconsolable. How to get up with an absence every day a little more unbearable? During his painful mourning process, Jérémie Rénier crossed the road to Loury Lag, a professional explorer and accepted his proposal to accompany him during his shipment to the Arctic.
The documentary From one world to anotherhis very first solo achievement is the story of this trip. The one where faced with the immensity of the landscapes, the extreme conditions encountered and the unexpected and destabilizing adventures that they generate, he will confront the pain of the absence of the friend disappeared forever to free it. Made by another, this journey accompanied in voice-over by his words as a shared diary, could have appeared immodest or voyeurist. But the modesty of Jérémie Rénier, the man he is and who has never drawn the cover naturally prevents him from falling into this pitfall. After the warm welcome received at the Angoulême festival and just before his presentation at the Cinéroman de Nice festival, he agreed to tell us about this adventure like no other, still without a distributor, but which deserves to find the path of theaters as quickly as possible.
How does the adventure of From one world to another ?
After the death of Gaspard, I had lost the taste for many things, including that of cinema. Without going into too intimate details, I was going through a big depression. This loss had finished me. I was buried with something that pushed me towards death. I lived in Spain, I spent my days reading, writing, locked up at home. It was during one of these endless days that I came across an interview with Loury Lag on Brut and I find the character quite incredible. I will see his Instagram account, I like his posts. And fairly quickly, the exchange between us begins. A week later, he sends me his book which relates all his exploits but where there is also a letter of forgiveness to his father in which he says “I forgive you with the violence that I suffered”. Because Loury is a beaten child. This book super touched me. And, in the process, I spontaneously sent him an email explaining to him where I was in my personal story and telling him that I had the feeling that we had to do something together. Without knowing that he was then losing his dad from cancer. We took a little time before we could meet but we ended up spending two hours in a cafe. He told me what he was going through. It upset me. I see links between us. And he offered me, since he had felt that I was looking for a form of powerful introspection, to leave with him in the Arctic for his mission to come.
Do you say yes?
I see it as a outstretched hand that may allow me to get out of the state in which I find myself. So I tell him right away yes. But the schedule was both very tight and precise compared to the pearl state. So I’m going to see producer Hugo Sélignac who is also my friend. I tell him everything and I explain to him that I want to follow and film Loury. Very transparent, Hugo replies that he is not sure to be the right person to produce a sporting feat film but suggests that I accompany this trip by delivering me, explaining why I undertake this trip.
How do you react?
At the start I was very chilly. I didn’t want to tell myself at all, to put myself forward, to be in the light. So I like to say no. And then I speak to Loury who finds the idea great and makes me change my mind. So I decide to play the game by writing a kind of frame of what this trip could be and why I went there. Then I will look for a childhood friend who is a cinematographer. I explain to him that I need, in this very intimate journey, to be accompanied by someone with whom I must feel very free, protected by a benevolent look. He takes me first for a madman, aware of the danger but ends up following me.
This danger, were you also aware of it or you obscure it?
Believe me, I was aware of it because Loury immediately told me that before leaving, he wanted to see my family to explain to them the risks I was going to take. So we made a lunch with children and our respective women, where he explained that there was 50% chance that I did not come back and that they had to agree and aware of it. Everyone supported me and once there, I was really confronted with the danger he was talking about and vertiginously.
Who accompanied you on the spot, apart from your managers’ friend?
In such extreme conditions, any technician cannot go. You have to be formed, have a physical condition as a psychopath to hold at less than 40 ° C, with blizzard and a white bear that tracks you! So I contacted specialists capable of going technically to biotopes as dangerous as that. But all said to me: “The guys, where you are going, if you bring images, we are curious to see them! I think I had minimized the thing. We ended up finding a young guy who was not cold in the eyes. But I think my producers have a time doubted that I bring images
At one point you film alone …
Yes, the team left. After what happened with Loury as we see in the film and whose surprise I leave, the production wanted to stop but left me the choice. It was really very noble and very beautiful on their part. Because they were the ones who taught me the situation. Me, I was stunned and they said to me “Listen, if you want to stop, we understand, if you want to go back too” and I decided to stay and I found myself for two weeks to film myself with a camera
At that moment, did you have a beginning of the beginning of an idea of what this film was going to be able to give?
No. I have lots of tracks. I film lots of things on the fly, facing me who are not in the film in the end. And then with a zigoto like Loury, I saw twists and turns every two minutes. In a scenario, I would have reproached me for the lack of credibility. But we saved each other with each other. Without him, when the bear attacked us, I would probably be dead. Because at least 40, when you get out of this tent, you have to put 200 layers under penalty of bursting instantly.
Once the shooting is over, what’s going on?
There was time to know how to find the adequate person to go up this. Someone having the courage to tackle this work – which will spread over a year and a half – and capable of understanding the sensitivity, the potential of what I had. And this rare pearl was Bruno Tracq, the editor of Baloji (Omen). An essential piece of the puzzle because you have to find a film among the 20 hours of rushes and this by finding the right distance because I am so modest that I was afraid that I am criticized for pulling the blanket to me. Besides, if we quickly had a frame, it took time for me to be more and more present. At the beginning, I disappeared. I had also organized a projection for a friend who had said to me: “But where where are you in the film? ». There was then no voice-over. And I ended up agreeing to dare to show me more. This friend explained to me that it was a chance that I could communicate who I am, what I feel, what is happening in my heart. His words found an echo in me. But I would never have done it spontaneously. I had to be pushed. I had a lot of modesty also compared to this death, to this mourning. Because I’m like that. Because I don’t want to get this mourning that belongs to everyone and their family in particular.
But the time that has passed makes the thing more universal, right?
Yes and it was my desire for departure. That everyone having experienced a mourning could navigate. The frame of the story was as I had not had the opportunity to say goodbye to Gaspard, I left there to do it. Like the light of the lighthouse in all this fog. And in the assembly, everything that accompanied this line ended up disappearing
How did you write what you can hear on the screen?
I wrote what was going on, I was doing vocals with a recorder who was freezing from time to time and that I had to warm up by tighting it on my body. Without necessarily thinking about the result, just to have a trace of what I was going on. Loury had explained to me very early that it would be complex to explain what we were going to go through to someone who was not there and would not live it. Words are missing to tell the fact of being plagued by ice floe, cold, psychological violence especially. We can try to imagine the danger but we will always be below reality. So I had to find the words of what I was going through when I lived it because otherwise it would have disappeared, the transcription would have been imperfect. What we hear in the film is therefore based on these vocals that I re -recorded by rewriting them and trying to find the tone just to say them. And, strangely, finding myself in front of a camera for a project that is not a fiction made me want to redo the actor.
When do you know that the assembly is over?
I am an eternal dissatisfied who always has doubts. But I stop when I understand that I cannot go further and when my producers – in whom I have total confidence – assure it to me. This film is atypical, there are certainly errors but now it no longer belongs to me. And that is very pleasant!
You have shown From one world to another For the first time in Angoulême. How did you experience it?
I was very afraid because in addition I am not very comfortable in this kind of demonstration and the fact of putting myself forward. And even less necessarily with something so intimate and personal. But everything happened beautifully. It is as if it was the first time that I could speak with an open heart, without pretending something other than what I am. The return of spectators touched me. I realized that it is they who will now accompany the film. Ditto for the choice of the distributor. I do not have one today because I did not think this film in the idea one day that he comes out in theaters but consciously or unconsciously to save me. What Hugo Sélignac had understood from the first day. And I want to find a distributor who wants to take this gesture to extend it.
From one world to another. Of Jérémie Rénier. Duration: 1h13. Indeterminate
