![]() ![]() When I made my first film, All Is Forgiven (2007), which was centred on a rather sombre and self-destructive character, it was really a character from the shadows. ![]() I think something that has always been at work in my films is the desire to speak of characters where I feel like if I don’t do it, no one will. But I write in a very instinctual manner, so I don’t necessarily realise as I write that, for example, the behaviours of my characters are surprising. When I hear what people tell me about the films, I try to understand. The choices I make regarding my characters and the way they express what they are have a lot to do with what I am… It’s only afterwards that I theorise about them or try to rationalise them. Mia Hansen-Løve: It’s not completely conscious on my part. In Maya, we expect this journalist who was a hostage in a dangerous area to react in a specific way, as well. In Eden, we expect the protagonist of the film to become a successful DJ like the band Daft Punk. For example, in Things to Come, the lead is a woman in her sixties who recently went through a divorce, and society expects her to react a certain way. Your characters have often gone through a change that is more or less radical, and every time, we expect them to adjust to those changes in a certain way. Seventh Row (7R): Watching Maya helped me understand a theme that I think runs through several of your films. She told me about her interest in people who stay in the shadows, her motivations behind choosing locations, the way she works with her actors, and much more. Though I wasn’t a fan of her latest film, Maya, it led to a great conversation with Hansen-Løve about the impulses that animate her filmmaking more generally. Whether that is enough to make us feel for Gabriel is another matter. In our interview, Hansen-Løve explains that she doesn’t judge her characters, and it is true that they all have their reasons for doing the things they do. One could perceive his objectionable relationship with the eponymous Maya (Aarshi Banerjee), an eighteen-year-old local girl, as a symptom of that pain. The beauty of the country, the vast expanses of forests, and the small villages where nobody knows who he is, seem to do him good - though just how he is hurting remains almost a complete mystery. A French war reporter who just spent months in Syria as a hostage, the now freed man refuses to simply stay at home, and goes on a solo trip to India. Here, however, this process of empathy meets a more difficult obstacle in the lead, Gabriel (Roman Kolinka, who also starred in Things to Come). The same is true in Maya, Hansen-Løve’s latest film. The director thus brings us to understand and empathise with her characters with subtlety and honesty, never resorting to emotional manipulation of any kind and never forcing our tears. But as Hansen-Løve follows them, their everyday gestures, habits, and decisions gradually paint, with small touches, a picture of who they are - of their pain, but also of their strength. Typically shy and reserved, they’d be the last to talk about themselves, and they are often going through some kind of traumatic change. Few signs are there to tell us who the characters are, what they want, or where they are going. Roman Kolinka and Aarshi Banerjee in Mia Hansen-Løve’s new film MayaĪt first glance, the films of Mia Hansen-Løve appear open to an almost frightening degree, with very little to guide us. The film premiered at TIFF, where we talked to Hansen-Løve, and is screening at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in NYC. Mia Hansen-Løve tells us about her new film, Maya, her interest in people who stay in the shadows, her motivations behind choosing locations, the way she works with her actors, and much more. ![]()
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