By Jonathan Monovich.
I wanted to bring a cinema crew within this very intimate space, which is something that movies hardly do. I thought it was a way of exposing myself.”
—Olivier Assayas
Like other filmmakers who began at Cahiers du Cinéma, Olivier Assayas approaches his films with sophistication. Assayas’ films are intellectual, evaluating the role that art plays in our lives, while also offering personal reflection on his own life. One of the great contemporary French auteurs, Assayas repeatedly immerses his characters in the art world. This is unsurprising as Assayas’ father, Jacques Rémy, was a filmmaker and his mother, Catherine de Károlyi, was a fashion designer. In examining Assayas’ oeuvre, Late August, Early September (1998), Based on a True Story (2017), and Non-Fiction (2018) are about writers, L’unique (1986), Disorder (1986), Clean (2004), and Noise (2006) follow musicians, Irma Vep, both the 1996 movie and 2022 miniseries, explore the filmmaking process, Rendez-vous (1985), Winter’s Child (1989), and Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) feature characters who are actors, and Cold Water (1994), Summer Hours (2008), and Something in the Air (2012) are about personal connections to art. Assayas’ newest film, Suspended Time (2024),combines these different themes as the characters, based on Assayas, his brother, and their partners, discuss literature, painting, cinema, music, and actors in the confines of Assayas’ real-life childhood home. As a whole, Suspended Time serves as both a statement of sorts on Assayas’ career/life and an intimate self-portrait about Assayas’ COVID-19 lockdown experience. Like most of Assayas’ films, Suspended Time is also a love story. Though, this time, Assayas seems to be in a much happier place, foregoing the angst of his punk sensibilities for a calm and comedic outlook on life. Though Suspended Time has Assayas’ signature all over it, it also reaffirms how he is constantly evolving as an artist. Assayas’ ability to make a charming, minimalist film like Suspended Time and a gritty epic like Carlos (2010) demonstrates his ongoing versatility.
Just as Clouds of Sils Maria, Non-Fiction, and the Irma Vep miniseries poked fun at an over-reliance on superhero movies and sequels, Assayas continues his satirical evaluation of the current state of cinema with Suspended Time. In 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, Assayas gave a video address titled “State of Cinema 2020,” identifying that “cinema has become an industry and this industry has become dominant” and that “cinema must be made against the cinema… to keep the flame alive.”1 In the five years since this address, the industrialization of cinema continues, though Assayas still pushes boundaries and defies expectations of the industry. In Suspended Time, Assayas expands his acknowledgement that freelancers in the arts were hit hard during the pandemic and is careful to establish that the tranquility of his lockdown experience in the French countryside was not universal. When the pandemic began, I distinctly remember seeing an Andrei Tarkovsky video resurfacing; in it, Tarkovsky sits in a tree beside a river saying people should “learn to love solitude.”2Assayas seems to have walked away from the pandemic with a similar mindset, yet he also seems to simultaneously value human connection even more now. In Suspended Time, Paul (Vincent Macaigne), a representation of Assayas himself, embraces the lockdown as a “miraculous time out” but also understands it is a “void” rather than a “utopia.” With the company of his girlfriend, Morgane (Nine d’Urso), his brother, Etienne (Micha Lescot), and his brother’s spouse, Carole (Nora Hamzawi), Paul faces his fair share of family tension. Living in the house of their deceased parents, the apparitional presence of Paul/Etienne’s mother and father is also felt through their beloved possessions (paintings, books, furniture, etc.). Assayas’ connection with the afterlife recalls his film Personal Shopper (2016). To help combat the stir-craziness of the lockdown, Paul speaks with his therapist (Dominique Reymond), who fittingly also played Macaigne’s shrink in Irma Vep. Furthermore, Paul escapes into his natural surroundings, embracing nature. Compared to the kinetic camera movement in earlier Assayas’ collaborations with cinematographer, Eric Gautier, the camera is mostly stable in Suspended Time. This is fitting for the serene environment and the metaphorical suspended time the characters live in, whereas the camera moved with the chaos of the city in other Assayas/Gautier partnerships.
What makes Suspended Time work so well is that it is one of the few films to intelligently approach the sensitive subject of the lockdowns. Though incredibly stressful times, Assayas diagnoses that the lockdowns were a valuable moment for a reset and a unique time for introspection. The characters seize the moment as an opportunity to catch up on books they’ve wished to read and movies they would like to see. Familiar with Assayas’ catalogue, this is not surprising. For example, his characters have been seen reading Gilles Deleuze/Allan Ginsberg and discussing the films of Kenneth Anger and Louis Feuillade elsewhere in his filmography, playfully referencing personal influences by means of fiction. Suspended Time’s quartet of characters also engage in conversations over meals and reminisce about the music of their childhood. This all sounds quite pleasant, but reality tends to resurface and the occasional argument is inevitable. Assayas approaches the subject matter through a comedic lens, but it is done in a respectful way. Most importantly, the characters of Suspended Time use the lockdowns as an opportunity to reevaluate what truly matters in life. Given the film’s autobiographical context, Assayas clearly did the same. Furthering the film’s realism, Assayas even lends his voice as Suspended Time’s narrator. David Lynch was hopeful the pandemic would “bring us all closer together in a really strong and beautiful way.”3 Though this unfortunately did not resonate broadly enough on a societal level, such is the case in Suspended Time.
Just weeks before heading to the Venice Film Festival for The Wizard of the Kremlin’s premiere, I had the pleasure of speaking with Olivier Assayas over Zoom.
Clearly, your youth was a very pivotal time in your life. Your book, A Post-May Adolescence, and your films, Cold Water and Something in the Air, focus on the aftermath of May 1968 in France. In Cold Water, Gilles (Cyprien Fouquet) connects with his father through art books. Similarly, you discuss how your father bought you art books as a child in Suspended Time. In Suspended Time you also mention climbing trees as a kid. This reminded me of the opening scene of Summer Hours, where the grandkids are seen climbing a tree. Did you consciously plan to revisit these specific memories in Suspended Time, or did it happen naturally when you went back to your childhood house?
It’s my memory. You don’t have a set of memories. You have one memory. When you’re making movies in the first person, you are very dependent on that memory. It’s half conscious. Throughout my life, I have tried to recreate the past of my memory with my movies. I have tried to recreate the house where I grew up, the environment where I grew up, and my relationship with my parents. I have specifically focused on the relationship with my father because my parents were separated. My mother lived in Paris, and my father raised me and my brother in the countryside. When I made Suspended Time, I wanted to do something slightly different. In one way or another, I had appropriated my childhood house in Summer Hours. I had also appropriated the house in Cold Water and Something in the Air. None of those houses were my actual houses. All the memories you have been mentioning were all adapted for the screen. I didn’t want to just use the memories, rather I wanted to do something that showed how those memories echo today. I wanted to explore the possibility of making something fictional, but at the same time, I wanted Suspended Time to be as truthful as it gets.
Often, when filmmakers represent their childhood, myself included, you transform your past, you adapt your past, and you make it more interesting and entertaining. In the case of Suspended Time, I wanted to take a shot at doing something that would be entirely truthful. I wanted to show the actual props of my life. I wanted to show the kitchen where I had my meals as a kid. I wanted to bring a cinema crew within this very intimate space, which is something that movies hardly do. I thought it was a way of exposing myself. My house was not as beautiful as the house in the Summer Hours. My grandfather, was a pretty good Hungarian painter, but he was not a major painter. I wanted to experiment with “painting” my own surroundings like Pierre Bonnard. Bonnard spent his lifetime painting his house and the view from his windows. It’s something that painters have been doing forever, but movies don’t do it that often. It’s terribly complicated to bring a movie crew into your house. The logistics are difficult and eventually become painful. All of a sudden, you remember you’re not just the filmmaker, and you’re the home owner. When shooting movies at someone else’s place, I’ve often thought “how can they allow Barbarians to invade their home” [laughs]. There came a point where I said “if I take the risk and I put myself in this spot, something worthwhile could come out of it.”
In Suspended Time, Vincent Macaigne’s character, Paul, is a fictionalized version of you. Paul has a similar love for Sacha Guitry and silent films. He also mentions making a film in Cuba like your film Wasp Network. Vincent Macaigne also takes inspiration from you as the director in your Irma Vep series. Your relationship is beginning to become similar to François Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Léaud, who you worked with twice for Paris Awakens (1991)and the original Irma Vep. You even mention Love on the Run (1979) at one point in Suspended Time. I imagine the Antoine Doinel films were inspirational to you and may have influenced your idea to have actors play a filmic version of you. How did that idea come about?
It has been a process. When we did Non-Fiction, that was the first time Vincent and I worked together. Part of me was Vincent Macaigne’s character, Léonard, and another part of me was Guillaume Canet’s character, Alain. In a way, I was both characters at the same time. Things started changing when Vincent and I made Irma Vep together. I love the Antoine Doinel films. One way my films differ is that, in addition to being an actor, Vincent is also a writer and a great stage director. He’s very recognized as a stage director. What was interesting is that Vincent was making use of the space we had with the eight hour Irma Vep miniseries. We had to develop the character of the director Réne. It gave space for Vincent to be himself and reflect on his own way of directing and writing. Because he’s such an accomplished actor, he’s also able to do an impersonation of me. He imitates my voice, he imitates my way of moving, my way of talking, and so forth. He turns it into comedy, which is exactly what I wanted. I didn’t want to make a serious self-portrait. For me, to make a self-portrait of a filmmaker, it had to be a comedy. It had to be funny, and it could couldn’t be too serious. The complicity between Vincent and myself is what created Irma Vep. It was essential. Vincent doesn’t look like me, and I don’t look like him. We are very different, but at the same time, I think we are very, very close. We feel the same things as we are both filmmakers and writers. I think that was the essential element. In the case of Suspended Time, I think the film gave something to Vincent and Vincent gave it back to the film. It has to do with our very specific and peculiar way of functioning.
Music is such an important part of your body of work, going all the way back to your directorial debut—Disorder. My musical tastes seem to be very similar to yours, so I always enjoy your selections. Some of my favorite uses of music across your films are the Ramones in Winter’s Child, the Pixies in Paris Awakens, Roxy Music in Cold Water, Sonic Youth in Irma Vep and Demonlover (2002),Brian Eno in Clean, Metric in Noise, Sparks in Boarding Gate (2007), Kevin Ayers in Something in the Air, Jonathan Richman in Non-Fiction (2018), and now “Snoopy vs. The Red Baron” in Suspended Time with a nice little Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) reference.
In Suspended Time, Micha Lescot’s character, Etienne, is a music journalist. Your brother, Michka, obviously does this for a living in real life. It seems like you have very different personalities but similar interests. Did you and your brother bounce ideas off one another for Suspended Time given there is such a great cross-pollination between music and film?
Yes, Michka and I grew up with the same tastes. I think that music was essential for us when we were growing up. The underground press was also very important for us as we were two kids growing up in the countryside. We were near Paris, but we were not that near, so we were dying to be closer to modernity and what was cool at the time. We needed it. It was the air we breathed. We were subscribed to the British music press like NME and Melody Maker. When the newspapers would arrive at our home, it was a big deal to read them. In the early 70s there was prog rock, and by the late 70s, it moved on from prog rock to punk rock. My brother and I both adopted punk rock as our idiom. At that point, we were in our late teens. All of a sudden, every week there would be a new punk rock band that popped up. One week you had the Sex Pistols, the next week you had the Damned, and the week after you had the Clash. Then, all of a sudden, you had Nick Kent writing about Television. For me, it was more exciting than movies. I love movies, and it was my dream to make movies, but in terms of the thrill, very few movies gave the thrill I had listening to the music of my time. I also think rock, in one way or another, is the poetry of our times. Rock captures the present in such a vital way. Movies are slower in capturing the present. With rock, you can have a band of teenagers convene in a garage, make a three-minute song, and all of a sudden, they’ve captured something no one else was even aware of. There’s something miraculous there. I’ve always been fascinated by the magic of the artistic expression of youth. It’s something that I have been looking for in all my movies. My brother and I went in different directions in a sense. He became the French expert on rock and roll. He published the ultimate Dictionary of Rock, which is brilliant. He also has a very successful radio show about the history of rock. He deals with contemporary rock, too. He’s more of an encyclopedia than I am. He constantly explores, whereas I don’t explore that much. I stopped with the stuff I love and stick to my old tastes.
By the end of Suspended Time, Paul, like David Hockney, comprehends that it takes time to understand what matters most is love. The Suspended Time poster is also appropriately designed in a Hockney-esque fashion. Jean Barnery (Charles Berling) has a similar epiphany about love at the end of Les Destinées (2000). A lot of your early films approached love in a much more pessimistic way like Rendez-vous, Alice and Martin (1998), Winter’s Child, Paris Awakens, and Cold Water. A lot of these earlier films also end tragically with characters crying. Suspended Time’s ending is very uplifting in comparison. How has age changed your view of love and life in general?
I closed Suspended Time with that line about love because I’ve always admired David Hockney. As mentioned in the film, Hockney was confined in Normandy during the lockdown. He was about an hour drive away from me at the time. I thought it was magical that David Hockney was so close in space during that period. He is someone who I worship, and his relationship between art and nature has been very inspirational to me. His ideas, in general, are very important. He gave an interview or a press release, where he said the most important thing is love. As you mentioned, Jean Barnery says the same thing in Les Destinées. Right in front of me, there was a short circuit of the same idea, in different shapes and forms, materializing in completely unexpected circumstances.
I am a completist, so it pains me when certain films are unavailable to watch for one reason or another. I have been trying to see A New Life (1993) for many years with no luck. Are there any plans to re-release the film?
The good news is that A New Life’s producer finally allowed me to restore the film. There’s now a 4K restoration of the film, and I can confirm the restoration is finished. The bad news is that the producer has been sitting on the film for decades. I don’t see the film popping up here or there. It’s completely out of my control. Now, at least, the film can be shown and potentially released as a Blu-ray. There’s a solid chance that the film will surface. I pray that it does, but I can’t certify it.
Notes
- Assayas, Olivier. “State of Cinema 2020 / Olivier Assayas.” YouTube, Sabzian, 26 June 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2kYyTtwCOw.
- Tarkovsky, Andrei. “A Message to Young People from Andrei Tarkovsky.” YouTube, Criterion, 26 Sept. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vvdtaaprzw.
- Rose, Nick. “David Lynch Wants You to Meditate, Maybe Make a Lamp during Self-Isolation.” VICE, VICE, 9 Apr. 2020, www.vice.com/en/article/david-lynch-wants-you-to-meditate-maybe-make-a-lamp-during-self-isolation/.
Suspended Time is exclusively in theaters, starting August 15th, via Music Box Films.
Jonathan Monovich is a Chicago-based writer and a regular contributor for Film International. His writing has also been featured in Film Matters, Bright Lights Film Journal, and PopMatters.