BISSFF2025 | Correspondence 通信计划050：Le Couteau et la Plaie 刀与伤

BISFF Correspondence 通信计划

This program involves conducting brief email interviews with the directors of the international films featured in the festival, in lieu of the traditional Q&A session that follows the screenings. Through this program, we hope to provide a platform for filmmakers to discuss their work and share their insights with our audience in China.

为了跨越种种障碍，开辟更多交流空间，我们设置了“BISFF Correspondence 通信计划”，对部分国际单元的参展作者进行系列访谈，这些访谈将在作品放映后发布在联展各个媒体平台。

The Knife, the Wound｜Le Couteau et la plaie｜刀与伤

Lucas Minier 卢卡斯·米尼耶

2025｜0:21:48｜France｜French｜World Premiere

Director: Lucas Minier

Interviewer & Translator: Mengjie Zou

Coordinator & Editor: Suliko

导演：卢卡斯·米尼耶

采访、翻译：邹梦婕

统筹、编辑：苏丽珂

Q1: Your previous work "Léandre l’Eté " is a documentary, while the fictional feature "Le Couteau et la Plaie " seems to intentionally blur the historical context. What was your purpose in doing this?

Q2: During the filming process, you employed handheld photography, shallow focus, and close-ups. Was this due to budget considerations, visual expression, or a combination of both?

A1&A2: For several years, I’ve been particularly interested in how documentary and fiction can communicate within a single film. My previous short, Léandre l’Été, was made through a documentary-like process, working entirely with non-professional actors. The film alternated between fictional scenes with written and learned dialogue, and others that were completely improvised as we encountered people and places during the shoot.

For Le Couteau et la Plaie, I wanted to keep that same flexibility, made possible by the small size of the crew, by reenacting a documentary protocol close to cinéma direct. The actors knew the story and the trajectory of each scene, but I didn’t write any dialogue. Before shooting, we would talk through the stakes of the sequence, then I let them improvise all their words and movements. No technical breakdown was prepared in advance: I adapted myself to their gestures and their movements with the camera. I hoped this would bring a sense of spontaneity to the framing, and affirm the presence of a body behind the camera, a reacting gaze.

Since I shoot my own films, the framing is directly tied to my own movements. I believe the operator’s bodily reactions, and their position in space, are meaningful tools of mise en scène, because they express the emotional or physical intensity of a moment.

To move freely within the space, we needed to remove technical constraints and make sure everything was filmable. We therefore completely redecorated the house where we shot, working with production designer Hugo Fontaine on the spaces, the colours and the patina, so that natural light alone would create an interesting contrast—especially in the way faces emerge from the background—without having to relight.

The visual references we used came from various eras and countries. We looked in particular at photographs by Christophe Agou (his documentary work in Face au silence, 2010), which are contemporary yet depict rural French interiors whose worn-out quality can seem from another time. These places still exist in remote parts of France. I saw some myself in Auvergne, where we shot, while meeting the people who helped us with the film. I think the blurring of the historical context comes first from the décor, and then, certainly, from the unexpected appearance of soldiers in a territory that, in reality, is not at war. That discrepancy created a temporal ambiguity that interested me.

Q3: In the film, the family members only include the grandmother, two older brothers, and Jason. Jason’s father and mother are absent. What was the intention behind this setup? And in your imagination, where did Jason’s parents go?

A3: The family structure is linked to my own life. I grew up without a father and was raised mainly by my mother and her parents. When I write, it therefore feels natural to avoid conventional family structures, because I didn’t grow up with them myself.

The conflict in this film is generational: on one side, the grandmother, her beliefs, her mystical and traditional practices; on the other, the older brothers, who have internalised the violence of the world they live in. Jason, at an age full of questions, finds himself torn between these two visions—between his grandmother’s legacy and the violence in which the older boys try to indoctrinate him.

It felt more interesting to explore this divide by removing the intermediate generation entirely. I never imagined where the parents were. These are the kinds of questions one sometimes asks during the writing process, to make sure nothing feels under-contextualised, but in a short film I don’t think there is a need to answer them. The essential elements are carried by the dynamics that are shown.

Le Couteau et la plaie, Lucas Minier, 2025

Q4: I noticed that in the posters of both your works ("Léandre l’Eté" and "Le Couteau et la Plaie"), buildings are placed in the most prominent position. For this film, it is a wooden house in the forest. What role do buildings play in your visual storytelling?

A4: So far, every film I’ve made has been conceived from the writing stage in relation to locations I already knew. There is something very concrete about feasibility—knowing I will have access to certain places within the very limited economy of my shoots—but more importantly, there is what these spaces give off, what they invite me to imagine, and how they guide the film.

For Le Couteau et la Plaie, the project was built around this abandoned house I had seen for years during hikes with friends.

The door had remained shut for a long time; I had never seen the inside, though I often pictured it. The day it was broken open—probably during a burglary—we were able to enter. The interior was disappointing: very few personal objects, nothing that revealed a lived life, which made us think it was probably just an old secondary home.

But simply having access to the inside was enough to convince me to shoot there. From the outside, the house looks almost like a child’s drawing: minimal lines, a door, a chimney. Lost in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods and close to a river, it carries something very particular, almost mystical. Its extreme simplicity opens up a lot of symbolic possibilities for me.

I imagined the building as a place of withdrawal, a kind of hut that embodies the grandmother’s inner world and way of being. Her activities take place almost entirely indoors, whereas the boys’ belong mostly outside. This separation led me to work with the windows as thresholds between two worlds: the interior as a space of beliefs and old gestures; the exterior as the space of confrontation, of the contemporary world, of violence.

Q5: Symbols of technological civilization, such as helicopters, phones, guns, and trucks, seem to be intruding upon this tranquil countryside. The animals (cows, rabbits) and even the humans (the grandmother, Jason) in the film are clearly affected. Although war is not directly depicted, what role do you think war plays in the film?

A5: I wanted to work with a sense of scale: to look at the “small story”, that of a boy caught between two worlds in a relatively closed and archaic space, while scattering hints of the “larger story”, the one unfolding outside this house and slowly filtering in. I wanted these traces of the outside world to exist as distant, almost abstract presences, yet concrete enough to disturb the apparent calm of the place.

While writing the film on location, the airspace was used almost daily for military training. Fighter jets flew extremely close to the houses and made an enormous noise. We later learned that Ukrainian soldiers were being trained in a nearby military centre. This discrepancy—shooting a film in an isolated countryside while hearing, almost every day, the signs of an armed world and real geopolitical tension—naturally influenced the writing.

For several years now, war has been very present around us: the war in Ukraine since 2022, which affects many people around me, as well as the ongoing genocide in Palestine. These two conflicts permeate our daily lives and inevitably seep into the films we make, even when they remain in the background.

By showing the war only through material and human traces, I wanted to evoke something forming just next door, at our doorstep. I wanted to use simple, universal and immediately recognisable motifs, rather than anchor the film in a specific conflict. This allowed me to keep a certain distance, while preserving a strong evocative power. It is not “war” as a defined geopolitical event, but war as a climate, as a condition of the world.

I have a great trust in images and in the sensations they carry. This naturally leads me toward constructing a symbolic universe, where each visual element plays a role, rather than toward explicit contextualisation. In a short format, it feels even more appropriate to work through impressions and resonances; I believe the film gains intensity by remaining in that in-between space, where things are sensed rather than explained.

Le Couteau et la plaie, Lucas Minier, 2025

Q1: 您的上一部作品《莱安德尔的夏天》是一部纪录片，而《刀与伤》这部虚构的剧情片似乎有意模糊了时代背景，您这样做的目的是什么？

Q2: 您在拍摄过程中使用了手持、浅焦、特写，这是出于成本的考虑还是影像表达的考虑，抑或二者都有？

A1&A2: 多年来，我一直对非虚构与虚构叙事如何在一部影片中交融特别感兴趣。我的前作《莱安德尔的夏天》就采用了类似纪录片的创作方式，全部起用非专业演员。影片在基于剧本的虚构场景与基于拍摄过程真实遭遇的即兴片段之间交替切换。

在《刀与伤》中，我希望能延续这种灵活性。得益于精简的剧组规模，我们得以践行接近“直接电影”的纪录片创作规范。演员了解故事脉络和每场戏的情感走向，但我没有撰写具体台词。实拍前我们会梳理场景核心冲突，而后任由他们即兴发挥所有台词和动作。我们没有预先设计技术分镜：我始终手持着摄影机跟随他们的肢体动态进行捕捉。这样的创作方式既为构图注入了鲜活律动，也彰显了镜头后那个反应着的、呼吸着的凝视者。

由于亲自掌镜，画面构图与我的身体运动直接关联。我相信摄影师的身体反应及其在空间中的站位，本身就是有力的场面调度工具——它们能传递出特定时刻的情感张力和强度。

为了在空间中自由运动，我们必须摆脱技术束缚，确保每个角落都能被拍摄。因此我们与美术指导雨果·方丹合作，对拍摄房屋进行了全面改造，从空间布局、色彩搭配到岁月痕迹的营造，最终使得单一自然光就能构建有趣的明暗对比（特别是面部从背景中浮现的质感），无需额外布光。

我们的视觉参考来源横跨不同时代与国家，尤其借鉴了克里斯托弗·阿戈的摄影作品（如2010年纪实摄影集《面对寂静》），这些当代影像记录下的法国乡间室内场景，其磨损的质感却仿佛来自另一个时代。这样的空间在法国偏远地区依然存在——比如我们取景的奥弗涅地区，在与协助拍摄的当地居民接触时，我就亲眼见过类似场景。我认为历史背景的模糊感首先来自场景布置（décor），其次当然也源于士兵在这片实际上并未经历战火的土地上的意外出现。这种错位感创造了时间上的模糊性，而这正是我最感兴趣的。

Le Couteau et la plaie, Lucas Minier, 2025

Q3: 影片中的家庭成员只有祖母、两位哥哥和Jason，Jason的父亲和母亲在此是缺席的，这样设置的用意是什么？以及在您的想象中，Jason的父母去了哪里？

A3: （影片中的）家庭结构与我自己的生活紧密相连。在我的成长过程中父亲是缺席的，我被母亲和外祖父母抚养长大。因此在创作时，避开传统家庭结构对我而言是自然而然的，因为我自身未曾在这种环境中成长。

这部电影的矛盾（之一）体现在代际上：一边是信奉神秘传统习俗的外祖母，另一边已将所处环境中的暴力内化的兄长们。杰森正值充满好奇心的年龄阶段，发现自己被夹在两种观念之间——既要面对外祖母传承的精神遗产，又要面对兄长们试图灌输给他的暴力观念。

通过完全剔除中间一代，来探讨这种代际分裂显得更有意味。我从未设想过父母身在何处。这类问题在（长片）创作过程中时常会被提及，以确保情节不会缺乏背景支撑，但在短片中我认为无需逐一解答。那些最核心的戏剧张力，早已通过画面中流动的人物关系得到了充分的承载。

Q4: 我注意到您的两部作品（《莱安德尔的夏天》《刀与伤》）的海报都把建筑放在了最显眼的位置，这部作品是林中的木屋，请问建筑物在您的影像中扮演着怎样的角色？

A4: 迄今为止，我创作的每一部电影从剧本阶段开始，就是围绕着那些我熟悉的场景进行构思的。可行性是非常实际的考量——在极其有限的拍摄预算下，确定自己能够使用某些场地——但更重要的是这些空间所散发的气息、它们激发我想象的方式，以及它们如何引领整部电影的走向。

创作《刀与伤》时，整个项目围绕着一栋废弃房屋展开。多年来我与朋友徒步时总会看见它。那扇门长久紧闭着；我从未见过内部，却时常在脑海中勾勒（它的轮廓）。直到某天房门被砸开（可能是遭了贼），我们才得以进入。室内令人失望：几乎没有任何私人物品，毫无生活痕迹，让我们推测这或许只是间老旧的度假屋。

但只要能进入室内拍摄就足以让我下定决心。从外部看，这栋房子简直像儿童的简笔画：极简的线条，一扇门，一个烟囱。它遗世独立于森林深处，毗邻小溪，承载着某种独特的、近乎神秘的氛围。这种极致的简洁为我开辟了丰富的想象可能性。

我将这栋建筑设想为避世之所，一个体现祖母内心世界与生存方式的屋子。她的活动几乎完全在室内展开，而少年们的领域则主要在室外。这种分野让我着力以窗户作为两个世界的临界点：内部是信仰与古老仪式的空间，外部则是冲突、现代性与暴力的场域。

Q5: 直升机、手机、枪支、卡车等科技文明的象征似乎在入侵着这个宁静的乡村，影片中的动物（牛、兔子）包括人类（祖母、Jason）都明显受到了影响。虽然没有直接描写战争，但您认为战争在影片中扮演着怎样的角色？

A5: 我意图构建一种尺度感：既聚焦“小故事”——那个在相对封闭的旧日空间里徘徊于两个世界之间的少年，又散落着"大故事"的线索——那些在屋外展开并逐渐渗透进来的纷扰。我希望这些外部世界的痕迹以遥远甚至抽象的方式存在，却又具体到足以扰乱此地表面的宁静。

在当地创作剧本时，空军几乎每日都在进行军事训练。战斗机紧贴着房顶掠过，轰鸣声震耳欲聋。后来我们得知乌克兰士兵正在附近的军事中心受训。这种割裂——在僻静乡间拍摄电影时，几乎每日都能听见武装世界的声响，（以及）真实的地缘政治紧张——自然影响了剧本创作。

多年来，战争始终萦绕在我们周围：2022年爆发的乌克兰战争影响着我身边的许多人，还有巴勒斯坦正在发生的种族灭绝。这两场冲突渗透进日常生活，也必然流入我们的创作，即便它们有时只是作为故事背景存在。

通过只展现战争在物质与人身上留下的痕迹，我想暗示某种在隔壁、在门槛处，正在生成的东西。我选择使用简单、普世且能即刻识别的意象，而非将电影框定在具体冲突中。这让我既保持距离，又不失强烈的暗示力。这里呈现的不是作为明确地缘政治事件的“战争”，而是作为气候、作为世界状态的战争。

我对影像及其承载的感知力怀有深切信任。这自然引领我构建一个具有象征性的宇宙，让每个视觉元素都承担使命，而非执着于明确的情境说明。在短片创作中，通过印象与共鸣来呈现愈发显得恰当；我相信电影游弋于那个意味模糊的中间地带——让事物被感知而非被解释时，会获得更强烈的张力。

▌more information: https://www.bisff.co/selection/the-knife%2C-the-wound