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2009 Festival Feature Films (March 27-29)

French director, actress, screenwriter, producer and author Josiane Balasko and actor George Aguilar present Cliente

director Josiane Balasko screenplay Josiane Balasko based on the novel Cliente by Josiane Balasko starring Nathalie Baye, Éric Caravaca, Isabelle Carré, George Aguilar running time 1 h 45 min Although not rated, parental guidance suggested.

Special congratulations to Josiane Balasko — nominated for World Cinema Dramatic Competition for her film Cliente at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Synopsis

Judith, an attractive and well-balanced woman in her 50s, runs a home shopping show. Divorced, she lives alone with her sister and confidante Irène who knows her secret: Judith regularly treats herself to sexual services from young men whom she selects from an online escort site. Like so, Judith meets Patrick, whose kindness, charm and simplicity she finds attractive. Yet Patrick, who is really Marco, is married and deeply in love with his wife Fanny, who thinks her husband is working at a construction site. …

director/screenwriter/author/actress
Josiane Balasko

theater

bibliography

actress
Nathalie Baye

selected films since 1996

actor
Éric Caravaca

actress
Isabelle Carré

Interview with Josiane Balasko

You wrote and published the book, Cliente, that was very successful, then you made it into a movie. Why this approach rather against the grain for a director?
In reality, I had first written a screenplay but I did not have any success finding money to make a movie out of it.

Shocking?
Yes, shocking. A 50-year-old woman, rich and stable, who has paid sexual relations with men much younger than her — that was not accepted. I knew while writing the screenplay, that I was touching on something a little taboo. But, while trying to produce it, I realized that my subject was much more taboo than I thought. That being said, I believe it was not a censure problem, but an economic problem: nobody wanted to take risks. They responded to me by saying it was not a popular subject, that it wouldn’t work.

How did the idea come to you? Did you know women who pay escorts? Had you read any articles, done any research?
In general, girlfriends do not tell these types of stories. Maybe some of my friends do it, but I ignore which ones. I had read some articles, seen television programs, but I did not conduct any particular investigation. I first started out from feelings to construct my story. It happens to be that I have a certain number of friends, close to or in their 50s, who find themselves alone. Either because they did not meet the right man to uphold a lasting relationship, or because they are divorced. Many people separate around 40 or 45. Men start a new life, have other children. Something which is impossible for women.

What were your readers’ reactions? Did you have the impression you touched on something important?
The book without a doubt touched women because I also addressed the question of feminine pleasure, without being shocking. Not in a technical way, but in venturing myself into masculine territory. Finally, it is always men who control women’s pleasure.

Who is Marco, truly? He’s a double character.
He is a very generous man. His escort work allows his wife to pay the bills of her hair salon, his parents-in-law and his grandmother to survive. He is very organized with his double life but he does not feel any shame about it, because he is doing it for a good reason. I wanted a charming young man and I find that Eric has an incredible amount of charm, a touch of femininity. Women are very sensitive to it since there is no dangerousness in him. He also has grace in his manners, tenderness. One can completely understand his success with women.

You excel, like always, in the description of this lower middle class milieu.
Probably because I myself come from a lower middle class background. My parents ran a bistro, we rubbed elbows with a lot of different people. As a result, I do not have problems in expressing and bringing to life characters that resemble them. This movie talks about love but also money: poor people talk all the time about money because they do not have any. My characters are not homeless people, but they are ordinary people, people who go to Wal-Mart to do their shopping and who have trouble making ends meet, which is the case of many French. Fanny’s family spends their time yelling at one another; it is kind of like an Italian family. Everyone suffers from lack of privacy. The less rich you are, the more your private life space is restrained.

On the opposite side, Irène and Judith live in large apartments. They are active and successful women, but are not caricatures of typical rich upper class women. Judith has earned her money by herself, it did not happen to fall from heaven. She is the CEO of a small enterprise.

In fact, whatever social background they come from, whatever jobs they hold, those women share the same problem of loneliness.
Yes, the film talks about women’s loneliness. About all those lonely women of all ages, alone for all different reasons.

You are used to working with the same team of technicians?
Yes. The costumes are created by Fabienne Katany. I have been working with her since Gazon maudit and I worked with set designer Olivier Radot on my previous film L’Ex-Femme de ma vie. Michel Kharat, the sound engineer, also worked on that film as well as Dominique Hennequin for the mixing. I asked Robert Alazraki to take care of lighting. As a director, it is the first time I worked with him, but I had worked with him before as an actress.