13/11/2024 - The Belgian filmmaker and writer spoke to us about his new movie, which paints a funny yet melancholy portrait of an artist who’s lost his grip on reality

(© Patricia Mathieu)

We met with the Belgian filmmaker and writer Stefan Liberski on the occasion of the Belgian release (via O’Brother) of his new movie, the comedy Art or Fart? [+see also:
film review
interview: Stefan Liberski
film profile], which paints a funny yet melancholy portrait of an artist called Jean-Yves Machond, played with conviction by Benoît Poelvoorde, who has lost his grip on reality. Lost in his wholly theoretical vision of art and life, Jean-Yves has distanced himself from the world of sensations and feelings, and he tries to change the course of his life by getting back to the basics of painting.

Cineuropa: How would you summarise Art or Fart? in a few words?
Stefan Liberski: I think that Art or Fart? is primarily about a character, Jean-Yves Machond, who’s played by Benoît Poelvoorde. It’s about the journey of a man who’s lost in the conceptual, lost in unreality, and who tries to find his way towards inspiration and happiness. He used to be a renowned conceptual artist who exhibited empty rooms. Then he was a teacher. But when the film opens, he’s looking for something else. He leaves for Normandy to allow himself to be swept away by the land of impressionists, the beauty of the world. But, as always happens with him, it stays more within the realm of an idea than anything else, and that’s where the comedy comes in.

Could we say that he was so lost in the conceptual that he lost contact with real life, and that his escapade sees him reconnecting with his sensations and his feelings?
Yes, I think that’s what he’s looking for. He has been and he is still trapped in his pre-conceived ideas, and he’s suffering because of it. He also has a difficult family background, but he’s at a point in his life where he’s trying to escape it. But he ricochets from one idea straight into another. It sounds a bit pathological when I say it, but that’s also what makes it funny, especially given all the misunderstandings he has in his interactions with people he meets. Inspiration escapes him, so he mixes with these locals, the small-town painters from the area. His Normandy adventure is also an opportunity for him to reconnect with his body, through love, through the act of painting which he’d almost forgotten.

You needed an actor of a certain stature to play Machond.
Benoît Poelvoorde has been involved since the beginning of the project, which is based on a book written by Jean-Philippe Delhomme, who we’re both friends with. We spoke with Benoît a lot throughout the entire writing process, and our discussions continued into the filming phase, still taking new shape. It was a real collaboration. I was a little bit worried that this character lost in a conceptual world would be lacking in tenderness, but Benoît lent him great humanity. He’s always incredibly generous, in all of the roles he plays.

There’s an unexpected character in the form of the house which Machond moves into, which is something of a UFO in the Normandy landscape.
He was never going to just choose any old house for his time in exile. He set his sights on an anarchic-utopian architect’s house from the 1970s, one of those bubble houses or saucers - ruinous heaps which are pretty much uninhabitable but which are concepts, once again. It was really funny creating that house.

The character of Machond is on the edge, but the film is still a comedy. Can you tell us a little bit about the film’s tone?
I actually always find it more interesting when comedy is on the edge. There’s something huge at stake for Machond, so the fact that he gets things wrong all the time creates comical situations. His way of seeing things in conceptual form is also a kind of resistance, a refusal to open himself up to the world. It’s actually a film about denying reality, which I find particularly interesting to explore because it’s something I think lots of people struggle with these days. We’re in a world crippled with ideologies, with fighting, with ideas, a dialectic which is anything but subtle. But every now and again, we have to step back to see reality. So this comedy is also an invitation for more reality.

(Translated from French)