Are you happy? a journalist asks a successful billionaire businessman. The response is an acute anxiety attack. This is how the film The Simple Things begins, which hits theaters this Wednesday, March 27, by the director and screenwriter Éric Besnard. The latest works of the French filmmaker Delicioso (2021) or Pear Cake with Lavender (2018) already hinted at a latent philanthropy that with The Simple Things is more than defined, the film being an invitation to stop and trust in the other. Besnard attends La Vanguardia by videoconference from his office in Paris to discuss the themes that run through the film and the reason for making it.
In Spain, the film is titled The Simple Things, What Are Your Simple Things?
I could answer in many ways, but first of all, I would like to say that if I have called the film that way it is because it is a search for those simple things. Everything is becoming more complicated, everything is going faster, so you have to try to find them.
And how are they found?
It's difficult, especially because we are complicated. You are complicated, I am complicated, we have our own necrosis and we lie to ourselves. In this film, two characters meet and begin to trust each other, it is only then that they lose their social mask and agree to be simple. Being complex is a way to protect yourself. Searching for simplicity was the objective of the film, but not only in simple things, even about oneself, trying to find them and undress.
And nature has a lot to do with that, right?
Definitely. He is the third character in the film. And if you want to accept that life can be wonderful, you have to accept that things can be magnificent. As a film director, I have to show it. Through a sunset, a sunrise, a gentle rain or a storm, nature declares that it is stronger than us. It's his way of reminding us that we are little things.
Knowing each other is, after all, ecology…
To have a good meeting with another person you have to forget that you are, how to say it, the center of the world. You have to accept that you are part of it. The two characters in the film meet as part of a whole. And that's all I have tried to show with the best resource: nature.
Why tell this story now?
For several reasons. I wrote the film at the beginning of the Covid pandemic because I started to see that people were afraid of others. And I didn't want to accept that. I wanted to make a movie that said, okay, we're complex, but if you take the time and spend some time with anyone, you'll find that they're more interesting than you think. On the other hand, I have children and everything moves so fast that I wanted to remind them that you have to slow down. Because if you don't stop, if you don't slow down, then you consume everything. You have to stop and think. You have to stop and choose.
Can we choose?
Yes, and we don't do it enough. Nothing is done to choose our lives. Everything is made to make you run after something, new shoes, a new car, a new job, run after, you know, whatever. We have to stop. But for that we have to know what we want. To want we have to think clearly. And stopping does not guarantee the ideal. This is the idea of Gregory's character. He stops but lies to himself. You have to ask yourself, what do you want? What do you really want? And try it.
The film also talks about connection, friendship is a key factor in the process...
Exact. The protagonists accept their differences and try to find what is behind the mask. If someone shakes your hand you will accept to settle more on yourself. One of them is in love with his sister-in-law, but he has never told anyone, the other is like Elon Musk, but he would have loved to do something else in life. Connection is the key. You meet a person to help them grow and vice versa.
And in that process, you have to leave prejudices behind, right?
Yes, everything starts from that moment. Once, walking down the street during the pandemic, I ran into a woman walking on the same sidewalk and she was afraid of me. She didn't know me, I didn't know her, and she was afraid. And that's why I wrote this movie. She was on the street and I told myself, I will not live in a world where we are afraid of each other. My characters at the beginning are very different and they judge each other. So they close themselves in on each other. After a while, they discover the roses and sorrows of the other and try to help each other, with kindness and leaving prejudice aside.
Can that save us from self-centered individualism?
Yes. I really believe it, life is better when there are two of us
I will conclude with the most important question of all the questions I could ask you. Is he truly happy?
Yes I am. I started my life wanting to be a jazz saxophonist. It was pretty bad. I know it was pretty bad. And that was hard. I mean, I was suffering every day. When I write, I don't suffer and I get pleasure. I don't know if what I'm doing is good, but I feel great pleasure doing it. My two jobs, writing and directing, are very different. Writing I am alone at home, I can do it whenever I want and close to my family. With the other, I have a hundred people with me, I am the captain of the ship, I am far from my family and I have to react to reality. Overall it's a good balance. I feel balanced.
