It’s hurricane season in Florida, and many people are fleeing the apocalypse – many, but not all, with Alexandra Simpson following those who are stuck or even strangely excited about the mysterious power they have no control over. In her Venice International Film Critics’ Week movie No Sleep Till [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Alexandra Simpson
fiche film], there’s beauty in disaster.

Cineuropa: There is a sense of waiting for something in this film. But if you were to ask your protagonists what they are waiting for, they probably wouldn’t know!
Alexandra Simpson: I think you are right to use the term “wait”. There is a feeling of stagnation. There are aspirations, desires and dreams, but they are all out of reach. We know something is going to end, but we feel powerless. Still, I didn’t want to capture it in a way that would be too tragic or dramatic. I wanted to show it in a way that would be tender and melancholic, in a way that very much speaks to Florida.

Every year, it’s hurricane season. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been told: “This place will disappear one day.” It’s the same ritual. You prepare, you wait, and you see what happens. This wait for something bigger than you was something that I wanted to be palpable from the very beginning.

Do you find it funny that the film is being shown in Venice, a place that’s also supposed to disappear, we are told?
I wonder if Venetians can relate to this feeling of just accepting a loss. Or is it a place that’s in denial about its disappearance?

It’s great when characters talk about things but it’s not about what they’re discussing at all – it’s about them being together. Here, they wonder why country songs are always about trucks, because they can’t say they care for each other.
I wanted to show the awkwardness and the inability to choose the right words. I see this as an ensemble piece, but I never wanted these people to meet. It would have been too easy and too predictable. I was influenced by the dialogues in some of Gus Van Sant’s films. When you enter a scene, like in Gerry, they sit around the fire, talking about a video game for what feels like forever.

Also, I didn’t want the “postcard Florida” in the film. I wanted something chaotic, unsettling. It also speaks to that town, Atlantic Beach, set up like a tourist spot, but there aren’t any tourists. There is fragility in the landscape and fragility in the dialogues. You don’t know where you stand. The storm isn’t there, but we talk about it.

Over the past few years, Florida has become this weird state of mind. Comedians mock it, and Taylor Swift sings about it. Was there something peculiar about it that you wanted to show?
It’s mostly because of social media and all the memes, but I wanted to step away from that. I didn’t grow up there; that’s where my dad is from. I grew up in France. He would take us there every year, and that’s how I discovered the USA. We would stay in Florida the whole summer, and as a child, I assumed: “Okay. This is America.” It felt like such a closed-off world. 

After Twisters, there was talk about disaster movies making a comeback. You play with similar themes, and you even have a “storm chaser”. What is it that they want? To get closer to God?
This man is a real-life storm chaser – he’s not an actor. I went on a few chases with him, and his devotion to getting closer to this natural monster… It really felt like something spiritual. Also, it’s a lonely process. It isolates you, but there is so much beauty in this anticipation. There’s waiting and a lot of disappointment because you can wait for days and get absolutely nothing. He told me once, and I put it in the film, that it’s just amazing how the sky operates.

You explore how people would react to the apocalypse today: they would live-stream it, like posts about it, and they would party like there is no tomorrow. There is something uplifting about it.
There is this strange lightness in the film because, yes, I wanted to show a celebration. There are “hurricane parties” in Florida; there are people who gather like that. This celebratory aspect gives the story a ghostly feeling. When I was writing, I thought about all these different ways in which we cope with catastrophe. I remember talking to one woman who went through many hurricanes. She said: “I put on my finest shoes, I put on a helmet, and I sit there with a glass of wine, blasting music in my apartment.” It touched me so deeply.