16/02/2022 - BERLINALE 2022: In the Spanish director’s film, a couple tries to deal with the aftermath of the terrorist attack at the Bataclan theatre together, but not in the same way

Céline (Noémie Merlant) and Ramón (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) can’t forget about the night of November 13, 2015. Inspired by the testimony of Bataclan survivor Ramón Gonzalez and premiering in Competition at this year’s Berlinale, Isaki Lacuesta's One Year, One Night [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Isaki Lacuesta
film profile] follows them as they try to rebuild their life — or change it completely. 

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Cineuropa: I feel that people are still so judgmental when it comes to grief – you are not allowed to laugh at funerals, for one. But you show people who grieve in very different ways.
Isaki Lacuesta: That was the reality of it and I wanted to work with this kind of intensity. It’s a rollercoaster – they go from euphoria, depression and fear to desire. They are trying to go on with their lives, but they don’t know how to do it. It was important to have a film that was full of emotions, music and colour. 

There is some humour in it too, which is surprising. For example in the scene where they read messages that people sent them after the attack, each one more ridiculous than the other.
For me, this situation isn’t exactly stupid — these people are trying to say that they love them, that they are there for them. But we don’t know how to react in these cases. It’s difficult to be around someone who is dying or someone who has survived. We don’t know what to say, because what can you say?

In life, even when you have suffered a trauma, there are moments of light and joy, and sometimes it’s a false light and a false joy. I was thinking about music a lot — take Nirvana. I remember Dave Grohl talking about discovering all these extremes: fast-slow, happy-sad. I just like this kind of structure, with all these sudden cuts.

Speaking of cuts – you start with them being together, hiding away a little. I was curious if you were going to show the attack at all.
At the beginning, I wasn’t sure how we were going to make this film. I only knew that I wanted to transmit the ideas and feelings of this couple. To live with them a little. When I read the book, I discovered I could understand Ramón perfectly — especially this idea of changing his life, because he feels he is wasting it away. Like we all do, accepting jobs we don’t like or staring at our phones for hours. I understand her too, with her idea of trying to forget and erase that memory, even though this film is made to remember. How would you react in this situation? What part of Ramón and what part of Céline is inside of you? It’s impossible to anticipate it, but we can try to imagine how we would like it to go. 

Tragedies don’t always bring people together. You show scenes of them in Spain, of her being surrounded by people she doesn’t understand. Do you see it as a story about the inability to communicate?
In the book, she is not French. She is from Argentina. But we decided it would be better to have someone from France — it makes them even more different. She belongs to the country that has been attacked. For him, the possibility of escaping is a bit easier. But nobody in Spain understands him; he is as foreign there as in France. 

They can talk about who was the “real” target of this attack. Were they attacking France, people who go to rock concerts, people who are looking for pleasure? At the same time, this film is not looking for motivations. We never wanted to make a film about terrorists, but about the real lives after the attack. 

Are you interested in the concept of national identity?
I don’t believe in it at all — it’s a very bad idea. But it’s very present in our society. It’s so easy for politicians to create “us” and “them”, to separate society as if it was a game of rugby. We wanted to talk about it also because it’s connected to the attacks and the way they were received later on. The majority of the victims of such attacks are afraid of becoming racist. If we are honest, all of us had these sorts of talks. You are at the train station and see abandoned luggage — your reaction to it will differ depending on who is around it. We wanted to remember these kinds of thoughts, and also to fight against them. 

In your film, these serious conversations are also a bit sloppy. They are always drunk or very sad.
I think I was looking for that intensity again. They are trying to reconnect in so many different ways. They try to escape from France, travel to Spain, they are getting drunk and smoke joints — nothing really works. They can’t reconnect as a couple or with their previous personalities. I love the films by John Cassavetes and when I was shooting them being so drunk, I felt: “Wow, this is like a Cassavetes movie. I feel very comfortable here!” Also, when you are in such a state, you can finally tell the truth. The worst kind of truth.