After "Carne" and "I Stand Alone", Franco-Argentine director Gaspar No茅 is no stranger to controversy. But even he could not have foreseen the furore that greeted "滨谤谤茅惫别谤蝉颈产濒别", a hard-hitting revenge drama starring husband and wife Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci. The film caused an uproar at the Cannes Film Festival with its nine-minute rape scene.
How did "滨谤谤茅惫别谤蝉颈产濒别" come about?
I told Vincent [Cassel] I wanted to do a film like "In the Realm of the Senses". Monica was starting "The Matrix" sequel in September 2001, so there was very little time. Because of their celebrity we found the money. The only condition was we had to finish by the end of August. The budget was 20 times my last film, but I only had six weeks to shoot it.
Why did you tell the movie in reverse chronological order?
My two previous movies were very linear, and I was tired of that. Very few movies deal with non-linear narratives, and they are much more interesting to me. On the first day of shooting we did the love scene, which is at the end of the film. Strangely, it was this scene Monica and Vincent were most concerned about, not the rape.
The film has been attacked for its violence. How do you react to that?
Violence is in life; it's part of human experience. I had problems with the French critics, because they don't like seeing France portrayed in this way. Interestingly though, most of the people who are offended have not been women, but men.
Were you influenced by any other movies?
There are many references in the film; "A Clockwork Orange", "I Am Cuba", the rape in "Deliverance". I was very influenced by "Straw Dogs" as well. I don't understand why it was banned for so many years. It's as if the British government have contempt for their citizens.
So what was it like making such a visceral film?
Going to work was like going to a party; I never knew what to expect. You don't see the fun we had off screen. The only hard scene to shoot was the party scene. We had to shoot it 20 times!
