Michaël Youn: “With BDE, I wanted to make a crazy film from start to finish” (interview)
Last year, the actor/director directed a crazy comedy, to be seen tonight on W9.
After Divorce Club In 2020, Michaël Youn made his big comeback with BDEearly 2023 on Prime Video and presented out of competition at the Alpe d’Huez festival just before this streaming broadcast. A comedy in which four friends, who met in the 2000s when they were presidents of the BDE of the Nantes Institute of Business, meet again twenty years later for a regressive weekend in Val Thorens. But the party degenerates when they fall in the middle of the Spring Break of the 150 enraged students of their old school…
Humor, lies, lucky Luke And Rahan : meeting with Michaël Youn, to wait until its broadcast on television, this Thursday evening.
With BDEyou return to a more schoolboyish humor, which recalls the era of 11 Commandments. You wanted to make a film in reaction to Divorce Club ?
In fact, the idea of BDE comes from these twenty minutes of celebration of Divorce Club who were completely crazy. I thought I would like to make a crazy film, but from beginning to end. To be completely exact, it had been on my mind for a while, but the trigger was really Divorce Club.
We inevitably think of Our Worst Neighbors Or Project X…
Of course, these are films that have left their mark on me. Project Xwhen I first saw it and learned that they shot it in 27 days, I wondered how that was possible. The parties, the excess, the sincerity, the organic side of things… It’s completely crazy. So obviously, BDE is a film that has digested all of that. And not only that: I can quote you Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey or the films of Sergio Leone (Laughs.) (BDE openly makes nods to these works, Editor’s note) I love cinema and I’m a sponge. These references are completely assumed.
What difference does it make to make a film for a platform?
I shot it exactly the same way as if it were for the cinema. Besides, it was originally a project for the big screen. Prime Video simply offered us a little more money, which allowed us to finance the film without having to make any more cuts. But what can that change in its reception? Hard to say. What is certain is that it is a film that is more for 25-35 year olds, even if I did not design it for a target. I do not like to talk about cinema with marketing vocabulary, but it is obvious that a Marvel is not aimed at the same audience as Xavier Dolan’s films. So, with BDEI probably have an audience closer to that of the Eleven Commandments or of Pattaya that a family audience like that of Divorce Club. This is what makes me say that BDE has its place on a platform, perhaps even more than in the cinema. Because today we have difficulty bringing young spectators to the theater. We really need event projects, such as The three Musketeers Or Asterix for them to move. And is BDE an event film? I don’t know. It’s hard to say “no”, because it’s my film (Laughs.)
The question of the audience that the film is aimed at is interesting. We sense in BDE questions about your age, about what you can no longer do after a while. There is something almost nostalgic, not far from the assessment…
Obviously, the conclusion cannot be the same as at the time of the 11 Commandments. I got older, I evolved. But I also wanted to make a film about lying. It’s a very important element of my life. Lying has become a friend who is always sitting next to me. And in fact, I don’t think he’s a great friend…
Do you mean in your professional or personal life?
In my life, period. I lie a lot. I’m not the only one, eh, we all do it, on different scales: “ Are you doing well ? » « Yes, everything is going well. “While in fact it’s not going well, but I don’t want to bother you with my worries! I wanted to talk about that, because we feel lighter when we tell the truth. But I didn’t realize right away that this character, in fact, was me. It was only during editing that I had the enlightenment.
Michaël Youn: “I started by being someone’s idiot” (interview)
There is also something about social status and recognition in BDE. How we put all this forward in front of our friends to feel important. Is this a subject that intrigues you?
(Silence) I see him with my friends from middle school and high school. We meet up two or three times a year and that’s all we talk about. In any case, they only talk about that. It’s… It’s sad, by the way. (Silence) It’s sad to meet up twice a year, to reminisce about veterans and see who has the latest car. There’s a lot of talk about money, as if having it prevents you from being wrong. There are few conversations that really talk about fulfillment, about enjoying life… So, of course, we also talk about children and their education. But that causes more money than happiness (Silence).
On a completely different subject, you are still working on a series lucky Luke ?
Yes. It’s long. And that’s fine with me, eh, that means it’s going to be good!
Are you in the writing phase?
Yes. I don’t have any casting ideas for now. And writing is complicated because we want to avoid falling into the same pitfalls as other talented people before us. We want to both respect the work and offer an original story. But I think we found a way to do it. I can even reveal a little bit of the idea of the scenario: Lucky Luke would have – and I mean “would have” – a daughter. That’s the starting point.
And Rahan In film, is it still relevant?
Yeah, I finished the script and we passed it around. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written in my life. But I think it’s kind of stuck between two stools. Just adapting Rahanit’s complicated. So to make it a comedy about prehistory directed by Michaël Youn, that’s a lot. It’s maybe a bit dizzying. So I think I’m going to withdraw Rahan of the equation and create the very first superhero. Make it a comedy, a bit of a parody, that takes place during prehistory. I want to try to create a franchise, somewhere between Pixar and Asterix. He says, very modestly (Laughs.) But I will, because it’s really a movie I want to see.
BDE, by Michaël Youn: between The 11 Commandments and Project X (review)
