“A POISONOUS FASCINATION”
VIRGIL VERNIER ON
CENT MILLE MILLIARDS The French director speaks to Pardo about the genesis of his latest film, how he crafted its magical world, and the way he worked with non-professional actors by Maria Giovanna Vagenas
MGV: Could you please elaborate on the movie’s plot? VV: I wanted to make a fairy tale like the ones I adore, such as The Thousand and One Nights or Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but in the modern era, a film with a main protagonist and a linear plot. I also felt that the Christmas season, when the narrative takes place, was the ideal time to give Monaco an even more fairy tale feel, albeit a capitalist one. Afine is only 18, but his life has already been plunged into the violence of reality, as he and his roommates work as sex workers to make ends meet. On Christmas Eve, he is invited to a dinner party by Vesna, an old Serbian friend and colleague, where he meets Julia, a 12-year-old super-rich Chinese girl who Vesna babysits. Because the three of them are a little out of touch and have no family, they plan to spend the Christmas holidays together. During the festivities, they will create a sort of ephemeral family. MGV: The film portrays a series of lonely, fragile, lost young people who no longer know what to dream about, but who won’t stop dreaming all the same. VV: I wanted to tell the story of the psychological violence that occurs when we are given a taste of a dream or a seemingly idyllic world, only to have it taken away from us. That is something I’ve experienced more than once. There are times when you are completely ecstatic about life, doing extraordinary things, and then everything stops. The downturn is violent. MGV: You’ve always enjoyed filming the fringes, the unseen behind our world’s facades. What drew you in this direction? VV: Despite the highly rational, scientific, and technological world we live in, we’re all fascinated, to some extent, by what is still inexplicable. I believe the power of cinema lies precisely in its ability to keep on looking for what is puzzling and mysterious. MGV: Afine and Julia’s unexpected, magical encounter takes place against an apocalyptic backdrop. There’s a veiled threat lurking on the horizon... VV: I’m not sure if there’s something apocalyptic on the way, but I do know that the ultra-rich have put in place a system to protect themselves from a potential apocalypse, including luxury bunkers, anti-nuclear housing, and hyper-secure gated communities. The hyper-rich guard their property like a fortress, which is what I wanted to show in this film. MGV: Cent mille milliards also portrays Monaco, a city that is as elusive as it is captivating and hypnotizing. VV: To depict Monaco, you can simply film it like you would film a documentary; there is nothing to invent or to add. I didn’t need to create on purpose the backdrop for a pseudo-magical fairy tale; all I had to do was shoot Monaco on 16 mm at night during Christmas to elicit a poisonous
fascination. Monaco is very appealing, like Ali Baba’s cave with all those jewels and treasures hidden behind a glass case that you’ll never get to, but as soon as you try to break the spell, death strikes quickly. MGV: The score adds to the film’s distinct atmosphere. How did you approach this aural aspect? VV: I needed music to convey both a magical, fairy tale spirit and a sense of unease. I worked together with James Ferraro, a musician from New York who had previously written music for Andorre (2013), Mercuriales (2014), and Sophia Antipolis. The score for Cent mille milliards is based on pre-existing music, inspired by the tunes of low-end American culture, such as shopping mall muzak, and ads for cults, fortune tellers, and horoscopes, all of which Ferraro reworked to create something grander. MGV: How did you cast and work with non-professional actors for the film? VV: My starting point is the energy of the people I choose; their bodies, the way they move and speak. Then I suggest a story that may be very different from their actual lives. I ask them to live the character’s life as if it were a role-playing game, in a playful way. I tell the actors: “I want you to stay who you are, but we’re going to play as if you were this or that.” For example, Mina Gajovic, who plays Vesna, I met in a traditional casting session, leads a completely different life, but she had a physique and stance that appealed to me. On the other hand, I met Zakaria Bouti who plays the film’s protagonist, Afine, in Marseille at 4 a.m. in a gay disco. He was surrounded by a large group of queer friends who were all happy, and self-confident. He was the only one dressed in black who looked gloomy and ill in his skin. I was keen to talk to him because he reminded me of the character I was writing. I told him about the film, he really liked it, and agreed to play. Victoire Kong, who plays Julia, was cast through social media casting ads. She’s a very mysterious little girl. We met several times to discuss the character, and she told me some very surprising things that made Julia seem even more enigmatic than I had imagined. MGV: In Cent mille milliards you create a more classic, linear narrative than in your previous films, but you keep the voice-over element that distinguishes them, why was that? VV: At times I try to write some scenes, but they’re not particularly interesting to me, whereas if they’re narrated, they’re much more powerful. Often, a point is simply more straightforward and compelling when spoken than when shown, which is why I prefer to convey it through voice-over. MGV: What was the most difficult challenge you faced throughout the filmmaking process? VV: The financing was difficult. First, I was unable to raise the necessary funds, so the filming was postponed for one year. Finally, when we received the entire budget – a small one – we only had three weeks to shoot, which was extremely short given that I wrote the script over five years. I wish I could have included more scenes, but I had to work within my budget. MGV: And yet you still shot on celluloid? VV: A lot of scenes in the film could have been easily shot on digital, like most films nowadays, but I feel that a certain magic is missing. The enchanting atmosphere of Christmas in Monaco required this chemical support that creates the alchemy of reality, transforming ordinary things into something mythical and legendary.
◼ Cent mille milliards premieres today, 12.8 at 14:00 at Palexpo (FEVI)
Read Mathilde Henrot’s review of the film on p. 14
PARDO
All images from Cent mille milliards
Maria Giovanna Vagenas: From one film to the next, your work traces a map of today’s capitalist world. This exploration continues with Cent mille milliards (100.000.000. 000.000). How did this film come about? Virgil Vernier: After filming Sophia Antipolis (2018) in southern France, which examined how the modern world has seized these beautiful, virgin territories of the Mediterranean, Monaco was another location I wanted to investigate because it evokes even more powerfully the brutal transformation of a place into a mere commercial and merchandised destination. So, I went to Monaco on a location scouting trip to discover a place I only knew by name. Because I couldn’t finalize the funding for Cent mille milliards, I shot Imperial Princess (2024) there in the meantime, a short film in the form of a diary, with only one character and mostly voice-over, depicting the day-to-day life of the daughter of an oligarch who remained alone in Monaco after the Russian invasion in Ukraine.
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