An Interview with Yann Samuell

Yann Samuell put himself through film school as an illustrator and storyboard artist before moving on to short films and music videos. His first feature, Love Me If You Dare (Jeux D'enfants), is a dark love story with fairy tale elements. A boy and girl from troubled homes find solace in a non-stop game of one-upping each other with outrageous dares; kind of a French version of "It… Not It," "it" being whoever winds up with the toy tin box shaped like a carousel. The games become increasingly elaborate and cruel as Julien (Guillaume Canet, from The Beach) and Sophie (Marion Cotillard, from Big Fish) reach adulthood. The film, which screened last year at Telluride and Toronto and was a box office hit in his native France, has an ambiguous conclusion, although audiences will know from the movie's start how the game ends. Recently, Samuell undertook an American promotional tour, and we chatted during his Chicago stop.

ANDREA GRONVALL: There's a circular nature to your film. You start out with the image of the carousel tin sitting in concrete as Julien's voiceover begins the story--it's almost like Billy Wilder's device in Sunset Boulevard, where the body is floating in the pool while William
Holden's now deceased character talks about how he got to that point. And you return to that carousel/concrete image for the ending, which accomplishes two almost contradictory things. One, it's tidy--we're getting a payoff for this game that has gone on for years. But it's also ambiguous, because you leave it open to interpretation.

YANN SAMUELL: It's a matter of choice, whether you rule your life or are ruled by others--society, family, educators. And the main fighters, my two characters, have to show whether they are game or not. And that's also what I wanted from the audience. I don't like films with a message at the end telling an audience, this is what you have to think. It's not up to me to have to decide for the audience. So I opened the end so the audience could make its own choice about the meaning of it. The end is the same each time you watch: their love is endless, whether they die under concrete, or die as old people in some unreal, happy-forever paradise for the elderly. Is it a problem?

AG: Not for me. I think your ending makes the movie resonate even more than it has up to that point--which is saying something, because there are several scenes that are so striking, it's almost as though one gets punched while watching them. Like the restaurant scene where we think Julien is going to propose to Sophie.

YS: If you really follow what's happening since the beginning, you should not be surprised by what happens in the restaurant because they always play tricks on each other. You want to believe it's not, because you want them to be together.

AG: This is not a movie full of warm fuzzies. It's satisfying, but it's very disturbing. These two characters are likable, but they're likable sociopaths. You talk about endless love; this is extreme love, and they take no prisoners. They're a menace to each other and everybody around them. If I knew anyone like this in real life I would stay far away, but in the context of your story, their bond gives them a kind of purity.

YS: Yes, I totally agree. And it has to be a platonic love, of course; it could not be a carnal love, or it would collapse. It's bringing to the highest level magic instants of the highest addiction, but not true love.

AG: Ahh! So it's NOT true love.

YS: Well, you know, it's just like Romeo and Juliet: can we really imagine them having a long life, plenty of children? They're so in love because it's the first time, the first spark of love.

AG: You've written that there are references in Love Me If You Dare to some very different films --Trainspotting, Fight Club and Mary Poppins.

YS: I wanted to write something cynical, something that goes fast, without any bridge sequences between two main sequences, and I wanted every sequence to be a challenge. And that's what I felt about Trainspotting when I first saw it. Also, Fight Club, because of the way David Fincher shot so close to the screenplay; he used all the tools he had in his hands to tell his story. And that's what I meant to do with my film. And Mary Poppins, because it has a simple message, even though the movie is complicated on a lot of levels, like mine.

AG: You wrote an essay about an incident in your childhood, when you totally identified with the great wheel spinning to the music of Strauss in the famous sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

YS: Yes! You read it! After seeing 2001 I actually spent a few months playing the wheel in the school courtyard. My teachers were very, very upset; they didn't understand what was happening.

AG: Well, I think there's a little bit of 2001 in your film, too, with the carousel wheel that keeps rolling throughout. Just as the wheeling space station in 2001 sends the main characters off into eternity, so does your little carousel.

YS: Yes, and back to the birth. I chose this merry-go-round figure for the tin box because it suggests a travel scenario; it always comes back to where it started. And that's what the two are doing with that game--they always come back to the starting point, until they take the game higher.

AG: You dedicate the film to Sonia and Gerard. Who are they?

YS: Okay, that's a tough question. When I wrote this story, I looked for a peaceful place to stay. So I went to this house of my wife's parents in the south of France, and they gave me all the love and peace and care I needed to write it. Each time I had to rewrite, I went to this place, and they were very patient, gentle and attentive. They never actually asked me what I was writing; they told me they would see it when it was done. And a week before the final editing of the film - just a week before it was released - they were killed. I told you it's a tough question.

AG: Killed?! In a car accident?

YS: Well, it can be called a car accident, in that the man who did it made a U-turn on the highway and decided to drive for three miles at a very high speed. He passed 400 cars before crashing into my parents-in-law's car. And he's still alive. So, he didn't mean to kill them personally, but he meant to kill somebody at least. At the trial he said it was destiny, it was Allah's will.

AG: I am so sorry for you, and sorry for your wife.

YS: Especially since she was pregnant when they died. I dedicated the film to her parents because, first, I wanted to, and secondly, it's a way of speaking about them. The film also is about accidents, and it's about two people dying abruptly. So it's a very strange coincidence.

AG: Things are happening rather quickly, between the film's release and success in France, and now it's here in the U.S. Were you prepared for this?

YS: Well, it's a curious thing, because if you're a normal director, you hope that people will love your film, and it will be released in many countries--and yet, it's a surprise when it happens. So, in a way you're prepared for it; in another way, you're not.

AG: Do you know what you want to do next?

YS: Not yet. Since the film has been released in France, it was a great success, but I only received one or two offers in France, and they're no good. I was about to write something, and then Hollywood started sending me scripts, and I received something like 40 or 50 different scripts from Hollywood. So, maybe my next movie could be here.

I will be going to China, which is exciting because in China there's a government quota. This year they decided they would buy four French films, and I'm among these four. So, I will have to go. They told me they want to open it for St. Valentine's Day. I didn't know they had a feast for Valentine's Day there!

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LOVE ME IF YOU DARE opens in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Sunset 5 and in New York on May 21, and in Chicago at Landmark's Century Centre Cinema on May 28, and will roll out in select markets.

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