You've Got Lovely Eyes, You Know! Episode 1: Evgenia Alexandrova, AFC, for "Les Femmes au balcon"/"The Balconettes"

Nathalie Durand: Hello, you're listening to T'as de beaux yeux, tu sais : the podcast that gives a voice to female directors of photography in the film industry. We are part of Femmes à la caméra, a feminist collective open to gender minorities, and we asked ourselves : is the female gaze a myth or a reality? A trap or a lever? For a long time, cinema has told us about the world through the eyes of men. Today, we sense a revolution in perspective underway, and as women of images, we are taking the microphone for this revolution on RapTz radio.

Today, three members of the collective are here with you: Valérie Potonniée, Margot Besson at the controls, Claude Garnier, and myself, Nathalie Durand. We're going to talk with Evgenia Alexandrova, director of photography who just shot the film Les Femmes au balcon directed by Noémie Merlant. Hi Evgenia, how are you?

Evgenia Alexandrova: Hi, very well!

ND: Evgenia, you're from Russia, you're 36 years old, you arrived in France in 2009 and you studied at La Fémis, graduating in 2016. Since then, you've made a string of short films and already have six feature films to your credit. You made your first feature film with Noémie Merlant, and you're the director of photography on her second film, Femmes au balcon, which was released on December 11. For Mi iubita, mon amour, Noémie approached you to work with her. Can you tell us how she presented your future collaboration to you? Did she contact you specifically because you were a woman? And can you explain how you two came to work together?

EA: While preparing for this podcast, I found the very first email I received from Noémie. I was sitting at my computer when it suddenly appeared on my screen. I'll read you a short excerpt to give you an idea of how she introduced herself. "Hello, I'm looking for a cinematographer for a feature film I'm directing from July 13 to August¹, so over a two-week period, a road trip in Romania, without funding and with a very small crew. I realize that these are not ideal conditions and may not be easy to accept. The film needs to be made quickly and with complete freedom. I got the opportunity to make the film two weeks ago and I'm currently writing the script. We're filming with Roma people in their homes. I'll look for funding after shooting and editing, and if it works out, I'll pay the crew afterwards. I have the support of TSF on this project. If you're interested, I can send you a summary with the director's statement. So yes, she specifically sought me out because I was—I am a woman. The family we filmed with, the Roma family in Romania, did not want to accept men in their home. Knowing that we were staying with them, eating with them, living with them for two weeks. We also slept three to a sofa. It was really guerrilla conditions, let's say. Noémie had made her short film with a cinematographer, Raphael Vandenbussche, who gave her my contact details. And that's how she asked me to do her film. After that email, we met and immediately understood each other. She saw in me the potential to do this project without a production company, in a hurry, under very special conditions. But I think it also came from the fact that at the time, I had already made quite a few short films and was somewhat used to "getting by."

ND: And you really shot it in three weeks, not even?

EA: We shot in 14 days and we shot day and night. We didn't have a crew, so there were only four of us: Noémie, the sound engineer Armance Durix, and me. One person on camera, one person on sound, and that was it. We did our own call sheets, makeup continuity, and storyboarding. It was a lot for me because Noémie didn't have much experience yet. We did the editing together, but ensuring continuity during editing was kind of my job. And I was the one who did the pull focus and the little lighting there was. And I was the one responsible for the rushes. It was really a project done like a documentary, except that it had a script and characters.

Claude Garnier: Do you think that at that time, Noémie already had an idea of the unique perspective you could offer as a woman? Or was it simply an opportunity to work with the Roma community, who really wanted a female director of photography?

EA: Yes, I think she was interested in my perspective as a woman because there were four actresses. Since she was also acting in the film, she needed someone she could trust to create the film's imagery. I think she was able to talk to me much more freely about her concerns, her relationship with her co-star Jimmy, and her relationship with her fellow actresses. Above all, we shared a great deal of intimacy: even in this first film, there is quite a bit of nudity, the girls are captured in their daily lives, they are living, and I think that if it had been filmed by a man, they might have been more modest in front of a man's camera.

Valérie Potonniée: Because it's already the story of a group of girls.

EA: Exactly. They are four friends who go to Romania for a bachelorette party and find themselves without identification, without a car, staying with a Roma family.

ND: This brings us to your collaboration with Noémie Merlant on The Balconettes, which is a continuation of Mi iubita, mon amour. I think she contacted you again because it went well and she wanted to work with you again. And for this film too, I think she needed a woman behind the camera. Can you tell us about how you worked on this project?

EA: Yes, absolutely. Noémie and I remained very close after our adventure in Romania, both as friends and as colleagues, and I began working with The Balconettes from the writing stage. I read the first draft, I read some versions of the script, so the discussion about the visuals began very early on. Noémie is someone who is very, as I say, voracious when it comes to cinema and art. She is very curious about the world in general and about aesthetics. She bombarded me with visual references right from the writing stage. So I have a whole archive of photos, film clips, everything she wanted to put in. So we started talking about it well before pre-production of the film, and then we did the storyboard together. Once pre-production began, we had to reconcile our storyboard and our desires with reality, i.e., the film's budget, the sets, especially the sets. on set, we proceeded as we did on Mi iubita mon amour: Noémie draws a lot of inspiration from the sets and spends time in them looking for interesting angles and the movements of her characters. We adjusted our shot list quite a bit after she got to know the locations.

Agnès Varda archive: "Ultimately, the problem isn't whether to talk about women or something else. It's that a woman's perspective, a woman's sensibility, is different. Even if an artist is asexual. Art critics always say that angels and artists have no gender. Nevertheless, people's perspectives are precisely gendered. And I believe that a woman's perspective on politics, on I don't know, on a landscape or on feelings, is not the same. Well, we can talk about that, that's for sure. I've always known that. For myself, for my work. I've always known it, but I've known it a little better recently, since there are other women."

VP: What does Varda's statement from 1973 inspire in you today?

EA: I completely agree. I don't believe that artists are asexual at all. What's more, I don't believe in separating the personal from the professional. From the moment I am Evgenia, Russian, a woman, and all the other characteristics that make me who I am, it becomes a part of me that is involved in my professional life. I am convinced that I have my own perspective. When Agnès Varda says that a woman's view of a landscape or the political situation is not the same, I agree. However, I don't think that all women have the same view of the landscape or politics. I think we are very different individuals, overall. That said, Agnès Varda is someone who, throughout her career, has proven that there is another perspective that exists. The films she made in her day, in the 1960s for example, already offered a very different perspective from what had existed before. She was very different. For example, last year I had the opportunity to discover Bonheur, which I had never seen before. And I was impressed by how modern this film is. I find it very relevant even today because it has a lot of humor and a lot of perspective on the female condition, and I think that at the time, it must have been completely innovative.

ND: Especially since she was originally a photographer. I also think that's an important part of who she is. She's not a director who relies on a cinematographer; she has a real eye for framing and composition.

EA: Yes, exactly, she's a woman, a director, a photographer. All of that makes her unique.

VP: Let's go back to the film The Balconettes and the first sequence: the prism through which Noémie approaches the theme of violence against women is initially that of comedy. However, the first shot, which is somewhat reminiscent of the opening of Rear Window, which I think was your reference, and which ends with a close-up of Denise's bruised face, is a shot that sets the tone, so to speak: the lyricism of the camera and at the same time ending with a very violent image. And it tells us what is to come. Can you explain how you conceived the opening of this film, which is quite spectacular, this sequence shot?

EA: First of all, I'd like to point out that I don't think The Balconettes is a pure comedy. I would say it's a black comedy, a burlesque, and also a thriller. There are quite a few genre changes throughout the film.

VP: Even fantasy, I think.

EA: Absolutely, fantasy too. It's a beautiful potpourri of genres, and that opening scene was written in such a way that when I read it, I could see a sequence shot: that scene couldn't be interrupted. So we really thought about it that way from the beginning and, as you say, Valérie, our first reference was Rear Window: that opening shot sets the tone for the film. It shows us the neighborhood, the community, the lives of the people in that neighborhood, and then we don't know whose point of view it is, who is telling the story. The camera travels through the courtyard, passing by certain balconies and windows, even sweeping across the girls' balcony, so we can imagine that it's the point of view of a voyeur. When we think of Rear Window, we inevitably think that it's a man who's going to watch them. Then we land on Denise's balcony, where she announces the drama and also sets the tone for the film: the way her husband dies, suffocated by Denise's buttocks, also foreshadows the comedy, despite the tragic nature of what is happening on screen. After that, however, the camera lands on the girls' balcony, and we understand that the rest of the narrative will be told from their point of view. First from Nicole's, then from the other two who are introduced later. That's how we thought about this scene, and then there were technical issues. It was important to keep this scene as a single shot, even though technically it was almost impossible. So we made cuts within the single shot, designed to be invisible. The entire sequence where the camera flies over the courtyard was shot with a drone because we couldn't set up a crane in the courtyard, which was in use. But because of the mistral wind, we weren't sure until the last moment that we would be able to shoot this shot, especially since it's a very precise shot. Especially when it comes to Denise's face. As it had to connect with a SteadiCam camera, it was a risk, but we were very well supported by a VFX company called Les Tontons Truqueurs, who ensured the transitions within this shot were hidden.

VP: Without giving away too much about the film, at a key moment in the story, there is a rape, but it is not shown. Instead, you film the trauma it causes Ruby, who is beautifully played by actress Souheila Yacoub, and this rape also has consequences for the other women. Here, we sense a break in the way it is filmed. You, with the camera, get closer and closer to Ruby. You're almost always in the apartment, almost like the fourth woman in that apartment. Can you explain why there is such a big break in the editing in the way this story is viewed?

EA: I think Noémie's idea and the decision not to film the act of rape itself was to explore the development of trauma within a character. We see Ruby immediately after the rape, when she comes home—later in the film, she begins to experience her trauma alone: she locks herself in her house and turns on her camgirl camera. We can see her, but in fact, she no longer lives the same way; she is no longer as bubbly and lively as before. The idea was to follow the character and the development of the trauma over the following days, not just at the beginning, and especially not at the moment of the acts themselves. The choice not to film the rape itself also comes, I think, from the perspective of a female director who decided to film it that way, unlike something like Gaspar Noé's Irréversible, where it's unbearable. It's filmed very directly, we're supposed to suffer with the character—another example comes to mind: in the film Cargo 200 by Russian director Aleksey Balabanov, there's also a very shocking rape scene. The idea was to talk about trauma, not to highlight the act of rape. Especially since when you show something so shocking on screen, I think few people can project themselves into that kind of scene and ask themselves, "Have I ever forced someone? Have I ever raped someone?" And the goal of Noémie's film was to open a dialogue, to talk about it and to be able to tell people, "This happens in real life." It's not something exceptional that only happens in movies, a horror scene invented by someone's imagination.

CG: Here, she clearly takes a feminist point of view. I mean, she has something to say to us cinematographically about what she thinks. I really liked the shot where Ruby is completely traumatized and dazed, and the man's hand comes into her mouth. I found that it really conveyed how absolutely defenseless you are in a situation like that. I found it even more powerful than the rape scene; it had a huge impact on me.

EA: Also because it's a situation that Noémie herself has experienced. She was a model before she became an actress—she talks about it openly, which is why I feel comfortable mentioning it. When she was seventeen, she experienced exactly this kind of situation where a photographer, in order to get the photos he wanted, took liberties with her. So she knows what she's talking about when she stages this kind of scene.

VP: You filmed Ruby's character very closely, and I think even her acting would have been different if it had been a male cameraman filming her. There's also the fact that you were two women who were close to each other.

EA: I can only guess, but I think so, it makes a big difference. We had already established a relationship of trust. Also, it's not one-sided when you film someone, it's not just someone being filmed and us filming them. The energy goes both ways. When I'm holding the camera, what am I giving to the person in front of me? And it's true that because I had a lot of compassion for her character, I think what I gave back to her must have helped her at that moment. I don't know if a man would have been able to do that or not, I can only guess.

VP: Noémie goes even further, she takes on a technical team that is mostly female. For example, Nathalie and I were wondering yesterday whether the boom operator was a man or a woman.

EA: Practically the entire technical team was made up of women. The boom operator was a woman. The sound engineer was also Armance Durix, who was working on her first film. My team was also particularly female-dominated. I had a female electrical supervisor and female electricians. I had a chief machinist, but he is very involved in women's issues and is just a great professional and an exceptional person. I'm suddenly giving my chief machinist too many compliments. (laughs)

ND: If there's one man worth saving, it's him?

EA: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And my camera crew was made up of women, yes.

ND: Was that Noémie's request or your choice?

EA: I don't think she had to ask me. First of all, it's the team I usually work with. My gaffer, Marie Gramont, is someone I grew up with, so to speak. She was already with me on my first short films at La Fémis. We built our careers together. And frankly, I took my usual team, which worked out well because they were people who were very sensitive to the film and who identified with the script and the way we made it.

VP: Do you think that being an almost entirely female team, including the wonderful and supportive chief machinist, gave you more freedom?

EA: Absolutely, it gave us a lot more freedom to be a women's collective. First of all, in terms of modesty, there are a lot of scenes where the characters are naked. Ruby is practically topless or barely covered most of the time. And in fact, it was very hot in Marseille during filming. Really, what you see on screen is the heat wave. And in fact, very quickly, they got used to not covering up between takes. They were walking around topless all the time on set. And it didn't bother anyone. We were completely among ourselves, free and uninhibited about nudity and our bodies. When you make movies, there are a lot of different economic pressures, and there are people who put pressure on you about how you should look when you're on set. And in fact, with this comfort, thanks to the confidence we allowed ourselves, it took at least one pressure off our minds. From a physical point of view, it was a relaxed co-creation.

ND: There's another rape scene, a case of marital rape. For me, there's a real sense of temporality here. As I remember it, it's a sequence shot, and the fact that it lasts and that we're really focused on Noémie's character gives strength, I think, to the way it's told. Did the sequence shot come from you or Noémie, or both?

EA: It was absolutely clear to both of us that it had to be a single shot. And we paid dearly for it technically. I can quickly explain how it was done. It was a very cramped room in this hotel. The camera starts on the sea, so I was very close to the balcony with a very long zoom. I start to zoom out. We see the characters on the balcony. The camera on the dolly starts to move back. Once we had passed a certain part of the room, the set design team slid the bed over our rails with the sheets and pillows attached with pins. Then the camera moved further back to accommodate the actors entering the room. All this with very precise and tight timing. I was impressed by the actors' performances. They stayed in character even though it's a very intimate scene and obviously very difficult to play. It ended up working, and we absolutely wanted to stay in shot to follow and experience the moment with Élise's character. We discover the dynamics of the couple, we discover what marital rape is within a couple that is supposed to be a normal couple, in quotation marks: the manipulation, the dialogue of the deaf with someone who can't talk openly about her lack of desire, and above all, seeing this transformation of a woman into a rape victim, and experiencing it with her. It was crucial, and that's why the camera returns to Noémie's face: we zoom in on her because it's not the physical act that's important at that moment, it's the way she experiences what she's going through.

CG: As I am focused on the female gaze, I really felt that a lot there. In this sequence shot that you did, there's really the question of time that must not be interrupted. At one point, in the end, because she still wants to save something, she still has a kind of affection for this guy who is her husband, she goes back to him in a kind of attempt to appease him, and that's going to be the trigger for everything that follows. Indeed, for me, playing this out in a sequence shot is a very feminine perspective because it's something that many women have experienced, that moment when a woman seeks a form of contact and appeasement, and it triggers exactly the opposite of what she wanted. That was really it, that perspective of experience.

EA: What you say is very true, Claude, about the actions Élise's character takes to prevent her from getting what she wants. It's very true, and many of us recognized ourselves in that scene. During the preview tour, we saw that this scene resonated strongly with a large part of the audience because many women have experienced this. There are also people who don't know how to put what they're going through into words, who don't know that they've been subjected to violence. So it's important to point the finger, but also with compassion.

VP: I think that more than compassion, it's almost sisterhood when you film her. Noémie disappears into the pillows of the bed in jerks and we feel how violent it is for her. It was a look that made me think that.

EA: Yes, I think it was something like that. Noémie is also an actress who touches me deeply, as her first audience. When I saw her suffering on screen, I suffered with her. Apart from being my friend, she is also someone who is waiting for me as an actress. And I think that I experienced many of the scenes with her.

VP: I also wanted to mention another quite powerful sequence, which is the sequence at the gynecologist's office. The character played by Noémie, Élise, goes to the gynecologist who examines her, and it's filmed from a completely different perspective than what we're used to seeing. We're facing her, she undresses, she takes off her panties and puts her feet in the stirrups, and we see her genitals in front of us, and on the other side, the doctor in front of his computer reading his emails. For me, it's very powerful, it shows very clearly the gynecological violence that occurs during consultations, when we all go to the gynecologist. How did you decide to film this sequence? How did she end up in that position in front of the camera, knowing that she is the actress and director of her film?

EA: Originally, this scene was a little more fragmented. In the wide shot that ended up in the final cut, Noémie was wearing a loincloth and undressing and getting into position. Then we cut to another shot and came back to the wide shot later. And finally, for the last three takes, we decided—well, she decided, obviously, no one could decide for her—to film it like that, to act naked in front of the camera. All women know that when you go to the gynecologist, you feel very vulnerable. You're completely exposed in every sense of the word. And you need the person in front of you to be human, understanding, welcoming, in a way. So this wide shot, as you describe it, Valérie, with the gynecologist sitting at his computer, completely unperturbed, going about his business next to a naked woman who is completely exposed. It really shows the contrast between the insensitivity of some professionals you may encounter. We women often find ourselves in situations where we are made vulnerable by our periods, pregnancy, breastfeeding, menopause—there are many things that impact our bodies, and in those moments, we need the people around us to be kind to us, which is not always the case, far from it. I think Noémie made her final decision during editing, but it was pretty clear that she was going to use this shot at the end of filming.

VP: There's also another choice you make with the camera at one point, which is that your camera becomes blurred. Your perspective shifts. It seemed to us that this was when Noémie was walking down the street in her red dress, and the sky over Marseille was completely blue. What did you want to express with this choice?

EA: That was more Noémie's idea. She wanted to experiment with the camera shaking and I went along with it. In the second part of the film, after the rape and after the girls get rid of the body, they start to slip into a kind of madness, they are overwhelmed by everything that is happening to them and we wanted to convey that in the images. In particular, we shortened the focal lengths to bring them closer together. We did a lot of debubbing, and sometimes I tended to say to Noémie, "Isn't this too much?" But at the same time, we never said we were going to hold back on this film. So when we could do more, we did more.

ND: Yes, that's really the strength of the film, it's a bit over the top in every way: lots of colors, a very voluble camera, extraordinary actresses, it's really very powerful. I think it's important for a woman to make a film like this because that's how it can also provoke a reaction. I don't know if it's very divisive, I don't know if you've had any feedback from viewers, male or female.

EA: Yes, I've been involved with the film a bit since its preview, and it's true that younger audiences respond much better to it. They enjoy it more, they find that the important themes are addressed in a way that speaks to them. Audiences over the age of 45, let's say, are perhaps more reluctant to embrace this film.

CG: We were discussing this among ourselves before you arrived because we are passionate about this film, as you can see, and it's true that there's something about this horror that's very lively, almost joyful in form, and that contrasts sharply with an entire era when the issue of women was approached in a much more serious manner, because perhaps it was difficult not to be crushed by the weight of the questions that were being asked. And here, you feel this kind of desire to stir things up, and it feels really good. I think it helps get the message across. There's a really strong cinematic form, and it's fundamental to getting all of Noémie's ideas, which you shared with her, across. For me, it's a momentum, it's something new, and I hope it will continue in other films.

EA: I hope so too. But yes, it's true that we didn't want to use heavy images and sound for heavy themes. Who can stand that for two hours when it's too much? This form allowed us to talk about serious things with the possibility of reaching an audience that is looking for something dynamic, modern, and colorful, once again. And we thought about the colors of the film in relation to our locations and our characters. The girls' apartment is very colorful with lots of primary colors, very cheerful, but also somewhat naive, like these women when we first meet them. Then we arrive at the neighbor's house, where I used cold lighting and where the decor is also very cold. You sense a certain danger, something that is about to happen. And in the second part of the film, the colors in the girls' apartment become a little stranger. There is a lot more yellow. It becomes a little sickly, we enter into a certain madness. It was really thought out that way.

Agnès Varda Archive: "So it's obvious that women, when they approach cinema, have asked themselves this question and want to offer different images. It goes so far that female technicians, for example, cannot film a woman in the same way with the camera. There are things they can't do— —cutting a woman into pieces, filming a butt walking down the street or a shot—a woman behind the camera will never do it the same way.

ND: We've just heard from Agnès Varda again. What do you think about what she said?

EA: I think that today, there are also men who don't film in the same way that women were filmed fifty years ago.

ND: I agree, there are indeed some.

CG: When we talk about this among ourselves, we tend to link the gaze to the point of view. If men and women have different points of view, their gaze is bound to be different.

ND: Yes, but I tend to agree with Evgenia. I think things have changed, for many reasons. At least, I hope so.

EA: I hope so too, but I think that recently there have been films made by women that have a perspective... that could be described as the male gaze, rather than a perspective of sisterhood.

ND: Let's talk a little about you, about how you got started. What made you want to make films? How did you end up in this wonderful profession?

EA: I was quite into movies in high school, but cinema seemed like an unattainable career path. I grew up in Russia. It seemed like a very closed industry to me. Not specifically closed to women, just very closed in general. You had to have connections to get in. So I never considered it as a possibility for my professional future. It was in France that I thought to myself, hey, maybe I'm 24, I still have time to try something else. I don't need to get married and have children right away, which might have been my path if I had stayed in Russia, in a society that is much more patriarchal than French society. I was doing photography. But what appealed to me was that I had met someone who worked in cinema, who explained a little about the different jobs in cinema and told me that the director of photography was someone who translated the atmosphere of the film into images, who created the mood of the film. And that appealed to me. I've always been somewhat drawn to the image of the warrior. I like strong characters, and since I started working as a cinematographer, I've filmed at the North Pole and in space simulations, for example. I've also made two films in Brazil and one in Tunisia. I like the aspect of pushing myself beyond my limits in this profession. I remember the master class at the start of the academic year at La Femis with Thomas Vinterberg, who came to present The Hunt, which had just been released at the time. The cinematographer for the film, Charlotte Bruus Christensen, was pregnant, I think between six and seven months, when she made the film. She won the CST's Vulcain Prize for this film, and we saw the making-of. She did a lot of shoulder framing on this film and used her belly to rest her elbows so she could frame the shot. That image stayed with me for years. That was in 2012, and I had the opportunity to meet Charlotte, who also came to La Femis. She remains an inspiring figure, a female cinematographer who goes forth like a warrior. But beyond that, I have a passion for interpretation, not in the sense of acting, but the interpretation of gestures, the search for meaning, symbols. And for me, that comes across a lot through the dialogue between the camera and the subject being filmed. That's why, for example, I make so many documentaries—not as many as I would have liked—because for me, the interaction between what I feel, what I think, and the s I see is extremely important. All this symbiosis of things is reflected in the camera I hold.

ND: Yes, that's right, when you film, you engage your body, your mind, your gaze.

CG: Your heart.

ND: Your heart. Do you think filming with Noémie changed you?

EA: I definitely feel much less modest now after this shoot. I learned a lot from her, from the journey she went on when she started writing this film. Noémie herself admits that she has evolved enormously in her outlook and in her relationships with women and men over the last four or five years. I think it was the same for me. We asked ourselves a lot of questions about how to tell our story, and with each scene, we wondered what messages we were conveying. Because you have to be careful too. You have to be precise when you want to tackle such sensitive topics. I learned from her to think even more carefully before filming.

ND: Thank you very much, Evgenia. It was really great to talk with you and exchange ideas. You were our first guest.

EA: What an honor! Thank you.

ND: We were a little stressed, but listen, it was great. We were really delighted that you accepted our invitation and came. Thank you to Margot for the technical support because it was fantastic. You can listen to the podcast again on the RAPTZ radio website, raptz.com, which we would like to thank because Pierre was wonderful in welcoming us. You can also find the link on the Femmes à la caméra website, and feel free to follow us on social media. We'll leave you with this song by Femmes au balcon. Go see the movie. Evgenia's work is amazing. We'll see you very soon for another episode of T'as de beaux yeux tu sais, the podcast that gives a voice to female directors of photography.