After having directed sketches for the Palmashow and the two films centered on the duo, Jonathan Barré takes off, and directs his first feature – obviously the two troublemakers, Grégoire Ludig and David Marsais, are in the game. But the heart of the feature film is quite different. Good Driving tells how a driving teacher who gives courses to recover points kills, at nightfall, the worst drivers – and finds herself in spite of herself in a dark story of deal of dope. Carried by a great Laure Calamy, the film wanders on the side of horror film, action film, love drama… and comedy, of course. As the film is released in theaters, we wanted to ask a few questions during a short phone call with the director, just to find out more.Konbini | To begin Jonathan, how does this new film fit in with your previous one, Les Vedettes? See also on KonbiniJonathan Barré | I’ve written it before, actually. We even almost shot it before. After La Folle Histoire de Max et Léon, we had a lot of trouble finding a new idea with Greg and David [Grégoire Ludig et David Marsais du Palmashow, ndlr], and I had launched personal projects, including what would become Bonne Conduite. That was a lot of stuff we threw away, all the stuff they wrote. Me, I had the idea for Les Vedettes, I told them to work on it, they loved it and they wrote it in six months. So I put Les Vedettes before this one. What was the first idea, the first stone, the basic idea behind Bonne Conduite? It was my producer Patrick Godeau who told me: “I I saw a documentary by Coline Serreau on the recovery of points, Everything is allowed“. I told him, directly, that I saw comedy but that it was not for me. He replies: “Think about whether you can’t make a genre film out of it”. I thought it was odd to want to mix things up, but I thought about how to bring in the genre aspect. I don’t know why I wrote a female role, maybe I was fed up, with the boys [rires]. From there, I said to myself: “Maybe as a driving instructor, she easily spots the worst speeders”. And banco! But as it was an order, I did not have too much affect on this project. I let go, telling myself that if it didn’t take, it didn’t matter. Except that everything happened. The whole thing around Keyser Söze, for example [une running joke dans le film, faisant référence au tueur d’Usual Suspects, ndlr]. In truth, I told myself that the film would never see the light of day. Did you write it without having any people, actresses or actors in mind? No, apart from Sixtine Aupetit. Well, afterwards, for the two cops, we didn’t beat around the bush for long. We wrote it while imagining the Palma, in any case. Afterwards, Laure, I struggled a bit. Either we found someone who was too comedy or too dramatic. When I had the idea for Laure, it was crazy. I had seen Only the Beasts and two days later, La Flamme. I figured she was equally good in both. And since my artistic direction was to move from one genre to another, I wanted an actress who could reflect that. She had a lot of stage fright, but she was fully involved, it was great. what did you have in mind in terms of a genre film reference? Giallo, pure action? I’ll be honest with you: giallo, I didn’t even know what it was when someone told me about it. Me, at the very beginning, when we thought about the pitch, we said that we wanted to do Fargo in Brittany. Only crazy characters, a lot of crazy protagonists who all cross paths. So that was the basic idea. I told my cinematographer that I was on thriller and that I wanted us to experiment. I find that The Crazy Story of Max and Leon [son premier long-métrage, avec le Palmashow, ndlr] is too bright, because I’ve always been told that you have to see faces in comedy. So here, I wanted to force myself to aim for black, real darkness. I don’t have a real reference. I had a black car in the night, without headlights, and it was a headache. Often, in the cinema, it is in town, easy to light. Non. And I didn’t want an American night. So I struggled a bit, with a drone at the end of the day… But otherwise, Zodiac, on cutting, helped me quite a bit too. I had very long scenes where everyone was worried, five or six pages long and, in fact, if you’re in simple shot-reverse shot, it’s tricky to see. And in a lot of Zodiac scenes, they’re sitting talking but with 21 different planes/axes. It’s crazy. So for the garage scene in Bonne Conduite, I wanted to do the same, to avoid having only two shot values. So there are 19. And that comes from Zodiac. Apart from the technical issues of pure filming, what was your biggest challenge? That it fit within the budget. Everyone said no to us, except for the actors. And after the financing upstream, nothing. Even with your cast? Yes, even with the Palmashow and Laure Calamy. But here, at the start, it was hot. TF1 released the film to us, when we said we would do it for less. I didn’t reduce the background too much, other than a shooting scene, I didn’t reduce much. It made me stress: I was afraid to sell it off. But as on the set, I had always had the same team, since the first sketches with the Palmashow, there was a crazy fluidity. I had 34 days, when I had estimated 47. But basically, it was very funny, a bit sporty, on the rendering at night and on the waterfalls, on Tchéky Karyo upside down, or for example, we hadn’t necessarily anticipated the tides… In short. We are a few days of the release, how do you feel? Very happy, since it is more in my skills, and that there, I am fully in my new project. I’m writing a family comedy with zombies with Romain Levy, Club Dead, in a Club Med. Little pressure all the same: a not cheap French zombie film is tough, I’ve been on it for years, I have to come up with something almost perfect. My first document dates from 2018, so good.
