06/09/2022 - We met with the Belgian filmmaker to talk about his latest film, a bloody and baroque phantasmagoria prized at the recent Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal

Cineuropa met with Belgian filmmaker Karim Ouelhaj, who was presenting his latest film at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, titled Megalomaniac [+see also:
film review
interview: Karim Ouelhaj
film profile], a bloody and baroque phantasmagoria about the spiralling of a serial killer, Grand Prize and Best Actor award winner at the recent Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal.

Cineuropa: What are the origins of this project? How did the very strong aesthetic desire that carries it and the allegorial plot, centred in a woman imprisoned by the patriarchy, meet?
Karim Ouelhaj: I had come to the end of a cycle as a director, I had just finished a societal triptych with Parabola [+see also:
film review
film profile], Le Repas du Singe and Une réalité par seconde, extremely tough films, particularly on the issue of violence against women. I wanted to move on to something else. I made some fantastic short films, where I felt I could add value. I had lots of stories, and not much of a budget, so I chose the one that best suited the financial limitations. I have projects that would need 10 or 15 million euros! But in this case, I had to keep economic feasibility in mind, which I did, by trying to be as fair as possible in the writing and production.

It is indeed a story that is very tightly centred on one place and two main protagonists.

The film was made in three weeks, which was enough for us, and we chose to gather all our forces in the same place, and to work judiciously over time. These were extremely tough conditions, but we were still able to research, explore and test when it came to the visual and narrative aspects. I had to cut a lot of scenes to concentrate on the ones we wanted to explore.

Why summon the figure of the skinner of Mons to tell the story of his children?

What fascinated me was that the mystery of the Mons skinner has still not been solved, so I started to make things up in my head... It's very intriguing, he may even still be alive! And then maybe we'll find Mons' skinner soon, like the murderer in Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder! Starting from this premise, I thought there was something to do on the subject, without going through the classic story of an investigation where we would try to solve the mystery.

So I wanted to imagine the life of the skinner and his children... To observe the timeless loop of evil, the mistakes we make and make again, and that we forget through history. That’s also the story that the infernal spiral of evil tells. And then, it is necessary to show evil.

How did you choose Eline Schumacher and Benjamin Ramon for your two main roles?

I wanted an actress with a normal physique, someone like you and me, to bring the character back to reality. It was a very strong emotional experience, so I also needed someone who was psychologically strong. Eline was incredible, she has something of Kathy Bates in her intensity. With Eline, there had to be total trust between us. It's a terribly demanding role, complex, with nude scenes, violence, and a lot of special effects too. She was an obvious choice.

For Benjamin Ramon, he’s an excellent actor and someone with a lot of charisma. I found it interesting to damage, if I may say, his beauty, not so much physically as through acting. To blend together beauty and evil, to find the contradiction. Visually, there was something there about at once rejection and fascination.

What were your visual inspirations?
I am more inspired by painting than by cinema, although I do have a lot of admiration for Clive Barker. I don’t do gore, I do nightmarish. My references are Flemish painters, like Van Heyk, and Velasquez, Delacroix. I have an art history background, that's what I learned at school after all! The aesthetic comes from there, from Francis Bacon too, strong, disturbing paintings.

This chiaroscuro, the monochromatic, a somewhat disincarnated side. There is so much material, so many riches in dark subjects, and I feel like I haven’t seen it much in films.

What was your guideline?
I wanted to make a cinema film, and cinema is about emotions and guts. Not only through the head. The whole body is involved. Whether it's sensory, emotional or intellectual. Even if you are disturbed, even if it upsets you.

(Translated from French)