The Rembrandt Syndrome [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Pierre Schoeller
scheda film], Pierre Schoeller’s fourth feature film, starring Camille Cottin and Romain Duris, is released in French cinemas today by Zinc. We have met up with him to discuss it.

Cineuropa: This story blends one woman’s trajectory, the portrait of a couple, the climate crisis, the nuclear industry, art, and even a hint of sci-fi. How did it all come about?
Pierre Schoeller: I was in London to present One Nation, One King [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Pierre Schoeller
scheda film] and it all started when I saw those three paintings and the feeling I got when I was looking at those Rembrandts. I also already had a few intuitions about the climate crisis, and I’d been approached about a series project focusing on a real-life situation in the nuclear field. At the time, I wanted to make a really modern film, and the story just came to me: the theme of moving from a feeling of power to a position where our desire to be is overshadowed by the forcefulness of the times we’re living in. As for nuclear energy, it’s a really emblematic French industry, and there were lots of things to say about the story of a female engineer who has a destiny after coming across three Rembrandt paintings. And there’s the thriller side of the film, too.

The protagonist is a researcher in an industry which controls the forces of nature, which creates a sharp contrast with the hypersensitivity which suddenly emerges.
I did my research in advance. I met with nuclear specialists and climatologists, and my intuition was confirmed: the times we’re living in make all of us ask questions. Claire’s journey is highly intuitive, but the film also explores technological thinking, modelling, prediction: how societies project themselves and rely on technology in order to exist. Claire is also a character on the inside; through her, we get to the heart of the system. Moreover, lots of scientists are asking questions at the moment, about what they should do, about the position they should take vis-a-vis the institution and civilian life.

With the aim of the "illumination" Claire experiences when faced with Rembrandt’s paintings, to make these incredibly serious questions easier to digest?
First of all, it’s really romantic. And it also brings art into our lives. Either way, the aim wasn’t to obscure things or to imply that there’s an invisible genie somewhere. It’s a little like the 19th century sci-fi you associate with Barbey d’Aurevilly or Henry James. It’s a kind of possession, but instead of destroying or colonising the person, it’s a possession which enriches, which takes her somewhere. So it’s a kind of bewitchment, a charm. It also allowed me to explore two poles: one very fictitious one and a topical, realist one, with references to Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia, Macron’s nuclear plan, climate predictions, etc. It’s not a head-on attack on nuclear energy, but a discussion does need to be had, and I’ve tried to make it as lively and informed as I can.

What about the climate-related "extremes of extremes" and their potential consequences for the nuclear industry?
I wanted it to be concrete, for people to visualise things. I wrote the film with help from Davide Faranda, who’s currently an editor at the IPCC and who I met at the climate laboratory. My aim isn’t to provoke anxiety or to paint an apocalyptic picture but just for people to know what we’re up against. Because there’s not time to wait, especially since the choices our society has to make are long-term choices, spanning two or three generations, and that’s why nuclear energy is interesting.

Is this a film about a whistleblower?
What I was more interested in was how we’re going to be convinced of the need to change. It takes a lot to change our habits even slightly in life, because that then changes everything else, which leads to more consequences. If we say that Claire is a whistleblower, it reduces her journey to a message. She communicates the state of her research, but that’s not her goal. Her goal is to change, to take a path which isn’t even a position but rather a dynamic, because she’s moving forwards without a plan or a particular method. That’s where the fictional aspect of being bewitched speaks to a very particular political attitude which I’m not even sure exists. It reminds me of Feuillets d'Hypnos by René Char, who was stunned to see young 20-year-old men joining the Maquis [resistance fighters] who weren’t at all politicised, but who committed their lives to the Resistance overnight. With Claire, it’s in part thanks to her encounter with the Rembrandt paintings that she does this. And people have to take up positions around her.