At the height of last winter, somewhere in a very distant galaxy called the Vosges, your fearless reporters had braved the elements to cover the Gérardmer festival, the Mecca of fantastic cinema as they say in jargon. This is where we discovered Tropic and who were able to interact with his director Édouard Salier and the two main actors who camped the role of the two brothers: Pablo Cobo (Lázaro) and Louis Peres (Tristán).
Interview with Édouard Salier, Pablo Cobo and Louis Peres
We share here the transcription of our video exchange, which unfortunately had been somewhat shagged by noisy muzzles (forgive us euphemism) in addition to a technical hazard. It is also the game of festival frenzy. Ideally read after our critical of the Tropic, certainly one of the best fantastic films of the year. Released in France on 2 August and the film is crossed to find international distributors.
K7: Can you tell us what led you to realize Tropic And slip a few words into the synopsis of the film?
Edward: It is the story of two brothers who have joined a very competitive dastronaut school. During one of the regular training sessions, one of them has an accident. It is affected by a strange fluorescent fluid that transforms it both physically and mentally. It is their story, that of a family cocoon that will explode and upset their life course.
K7: Regarding casting, you are not brothers in real life but you play two brothers with a pretty crazy closeness. As for you, Edward, in a few plans, from the beginning, you literally pose the action. You feel very well their closeness to their mother. Did you first find Louis and Pablo? And how did you manage to generate this proximity? Did you film moments of life and then hold certain scenes? What is the part of improvisation?
Edward: I've been looking for them with casting managers. We wanted two characters who embody these twin brothers, which was not simple. It's always complicated to find two brothers to the point where I was even ready to change the scenario!
Louis : Then you have to recognize that the script has changed a lot, because at the base the two brothers in the film were much younger...
Edward: Yes, it was an age a gut below. I wanted to adapt the script to the actors I was going to find. And it wasn't easy to the point where I wondered if I was really going to have twin brothers. I already had Pablo in mind... but Louis was more discreet. (general laugh) When I met them, it was like evidence and it worked directly. They both did a casting. And in fact the evidence was imposed on itself.
K7: You didn't know each other at first?
Pablo : We knew each other, yes. We met once on a casting!
Louis : Yes, a casting of a series called Mind. And actually Pablo and I met in the waiting room for that casting. We were found, I don't know, five years later. You also said you had 20 extra pounds and long hair, right?
Pablo : No, he's a little... (sighs)
K7 : Containment was difficult! (Laughter)
Louis : You had your hair there, earrings. Not an astronaut's head at all!
Pablo : Yes, I had grown a lot at that time and I had to do a lot of sports! A real challenge!
Edward: The difficulty of casting was also to find actors who have a little bit of off-standard physical abilities. It's not that simple. We needed a character capable of incarnating this supertrained superman. You were still in good shape, but we added an intensive two-three-month physical training. Apnea, training in all directions.
Louis : The big trick for me was apnea!
Pablo : I haven't been in sports in a really long time. The casting director called to ask me if I was ready to have a coach to work non-stop. Edward did the same. And then I realized it was serious. Five days a week non-stop for three months.
K7 : For our audience, who hasn't seen the movie yet, Tropic begins with a very powerful scene under the water that will illustrate Tropic.
Edward: Completely.
K7 : You're under water. You, Pablo, are much more comfortable with apnea. You're calmer, while your brother is – much less zen. This metaphor is interesting because throughout the film you will go through several states. First denial, rejection, then love. On this side we've already talked about physical preparation and there's the makeup we'll talk about later. How did you prepare your role Pablo by moving from handsome to total collapse? The psychological and physical evolution of your character is striking.
Louis : You talked about the first scene that is ultimately the guideline of their relationship, that of a brother who chokes and prevents breathing his twin. It's in this first scene that their whole relationship is exposed like this. Edward has a sort of extreme perfectionism. He thought of a mix between Gilbert Grape and Elephant Man for Tristán We were trying to build a character who would evolve in this area but who would also have his parts of darkness with a greater sensitivity than these two characters mentioned above. It was very complicated because we wanted - which is a trick in France - to make it look like it was true! Tristán is not a victim either. For the French public, it is still an UFO this kind of film. The challenge was to make this transformation look like it: this guy who succeeds everything he does and who becomes in quotation marks... one can say it... (turns to Pablo who acquiesces) a « monster » ? And in France, we don't usually see that!
Louis and Edward: Yes!
Louis : It was difficult to find this character in the tics, in the voice, the way to speak. I made a rather radical choice... I had about three to five hours of makeup a day. From the moment I was put on the contact lens that completely blocked my view of the left eye, no one called me Louis... and they called me Tristán. (silence)
(Laughter General!)
Louis : That first day... I thought, « If I don't believe it, it won't work. ». When I came to get a coffee, I stuttered and people called me Tristán. It's a way to create a relationship where Edouard, Mathieu, Pablo, Marta - those who were with me most - called Tristán and more Louis. On the set, it was very different, Marta took me like her son even when we said « Cut ». Same for Pablo.
Edward : You invest a character!
Pablo : It was hard. The lens hurt you, it was hot, etc..
Louis : It was in the middle of August! We were sweating! It was very complicated. Going out, going back, going out, coming back, that would have been impossible for me. I made this choice that everyone has kindly respected.
K7 Interesting... Similarly, when you first appear on the screen from the moment you are transformed, everything is done with great elegance. A monster can generate a reaction of rejection or even nervous laughter, which was not at all the case during the projection [to Gérardmer as at NIFFF]. It's done with intelligence, because the first thing you see is your untidy back. We can guess as soon as your face's gonna be the same. We understand at this precise moment that you are disfigured and the spectator is then prepared for horror. Regarding the apnea, choking comes back several times in the film, Lázaro's lack of air asking his brother to stop following him for example. You even say something like « Let me breathe, stop following me ». There's this beautiful scene where you'll try again...
Pablo : ... River apnea?
K7 : Exactly! How did you work this particularly hard scene? It must not have been obvious...
Edward : Before you played this scene, you came to me, Pablo, and you came to tell me « I'm really a bastard! »
Pablo : Voluntaryly, it is necessary to know that I did not work the character upstream: neither the texts, nor the intentions, nor nothing, in the sense that for me this character is a guy who takes a wall and where he is not able to imagine what will happen to him. Same for his brother. This deflagration is unimaginable. He's actually lost. He is in this permanent blur where he does not understand his emotions that go through him: denial as you pointed out for example. I wanted to install a blur myself. On the other hand, I worked a lot on my body to make it credible. I knew the shooting would be physical and I had to keep pace. I really worked apnea, which was fun. It was great to work on these aspects. But for the emotional part, I didn't touch it, I wanted to take her in the face, which was the case!
Louis : Which was - really - the case, yes!
Pablo : Yeah, I didn't always live well. This scene you're talking about, for example, I've been living it very badly. Louis accompanied a lot to get there. It was very hard. You have to know that in relation to the scenario the montage rewritten things a lot and this scene was longer... [Censure spoiler] The dramatic stake was even more intense for me.
Louis : After Edward made the choice, you stop me if I'm wrong, to shoot many other shots that you won't see in the movie. Edward made this choice to be in a little bit « Pudic ». We're not in American emotion. This scene you're talking about, it's filmed from a distance...
K7 : The cameraman could be behind a bush somehow!
Pablo : Exactly!
Louis : You're right. He could be behind a bush when he was shot in the eyes, etc... This scene, we discovered quite different compared to the time of the shooting.
K7 : It's interesting because in the film, in terms of realization, we're more with the camera on the shoulder, it's moving a lot at first. It's pretty good for adolescence, at least this transition to adulthood. In fact throughout the film, we move from one state to another, rejection, denial, etc.. And in the end, the camera is more laid down, soothed even. Can you tell us about this work of realization to transcribe these emotions to the screen?
Edward: That's exactly what you're saying. Three quarters of the film are shot in 16mm on the shoulder with a hyper-living image, which I hope represents the family cocoon of their family, their youth, memory. A kind of emotional fusion that super 16 gives me. The last part - without revealing anything - is filmed in 4K digital on stage. The goal was to make a real ellipse between the beginning and the end. There had to be a real difference of sensations for the viewer and it had to be perceptible on the screen.
K7 : You're talking about youth. For me, there is a certain retro 80 sensitivity in the mind, in terms of music but not only.
Edward: Completely!
K7 : I'm in my thirties and it's funny, it's quite a fantasy time in my eyes. Everything's fine for them at first. Certainly the father is absent but it is even better in reality. Despite her absence, Mother Marta is happy with her sons. You, Louis, you discover love... For you Pablo... not yet but you're wide open! (Laughter)
Louis : At the same time, it was Edward who gradually made me understand. Yeah, it's a perfect family, but there's this Tristán thing that's choking the family. Nobody knows!
Edward : Even he doesn't know. This is the father figure of the family. It is he who takes care of his mother as his twin brother whom he finally considers his little brother. He has the upper hand on everything. The first image of the film shows it: it prevents breathing Lázaro and from fulfilling!
K7 : This is also what is found in the title of the film. The tropics are opposed, to extreme temperatures, it looks alike and yet it's not the same either. We feel that there are always very different temperaments in any sibling.
Edward: Absolutely!
K7 : Let's go back to fantastic cinema in general, a genre that today covers an ever-wider production. I wanted to go back to another movie you might have seen: Our ceremonies…
Louis : I knew it, I knew it! (Laughter)
K7 : Did you have the opportunity to see this film that deals with another sibling but from another angle?
Edward : I saw him at SITGES. It is the same theme while being treated in a very distinct way...
Louis : Did you really like the movie?
Edward : Yes, I loved him very much. These are two films that are in the same festivals in parallel. Ours was at SITGES too, which is fun.
K7 : To conclude this interview, I have a final question with regard to the choice of the theme of the film, particularly on the management of such a drama by the family? How do you analyze this ordeal?
Edward: When you're confronted with a drama and then it's the case, how do you handle the chain reaction? Do you accept it or not? Everyone will live it in different ways. I think this is a universal theme. Everyone is confronted one day with a tragedy, a death, an accident. It's the real theme of the movie! I hope it's a universal theme anyway.
K7 : What about watermarks?
Edward: Yeah, I was also thinking about elitism, the planet that's implosing. It is a dystopic film in a way because they are in this school to flee the Earth which is consuming itself.
K7 : We understand that, yes. There is also a small punchline during the stage of the football stadium with an express reference to confinement.
Louis : Yeah, it's just funny that you picked it up... There is also the theme of difference, disability. On my very small scale, obviously, when we had to flip some scenes, when I was put on makeup, I remember a moment when there were people living around. There were young children and once I was wearing makeup, the kids were afraid of me and ran away. Or they looked at me from a distance...
Pablo : They were even going to see their parents! « Mom, Mom, you see, he's not normal! »
Louis : You're getting a little in the face of this different thing. The look and misunderstanding of others.
Pablo : The silence you create when you come into a room.
Edward: It also joins the elitist society in which one lives. This permanent competition, this constant race towards the « progress ».
K7 : It's like the space race in fact.
Louis and Pablo : That's it!
Edward: You're right. It's the time of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, this space conquest where we don't really understand the ins and outs, the real reasons behind. These are underlying themes but for me the scene of the film that tells a little bit about all this world disorder that will give the strength to your character, it is (without revealing it) the sequence in the pool where one of your friends in a wheelchair symbolizes a form of calming finally.
Louis : That's right!
Edward: Forgiving everything. We can't reveal everything but in this society where everything is going too fast now, there is this lull.
K7 : It also reminds me of this scene where Pablo is invited to a birthday party of a person. « different », slightly delayed maybe and yet he is super cool and very nice.
Edward: Yes!
K7 : It's funny because it may be the first time that Pablo's character has faced it. It's like at the moment you weren't rejecting him, but you were going to ignore him, to invisibly...
Louis : Above all, he'll look at him below him!
K7 : That's right. It's a time you've never been confronted with since you're propelled into a race for elitism because it's about the youth that embodies the future.
Edward: That's exactly it.
Louis : This is the report of the garbage school and the study space which are yet next to one another...
K7 : ...but not together.
Louis : Yes, one of the two collects all the funding.
K7 : Next but not together!
Edward : Next door but not together and in addition they are all strong, beautiful, intelligent. It's almost a caricature and all of a sudden comes up with humanity in this young boy.
K7 : And a talent? He starts rapping! Obviously this scene is comical and paradoxically it must be done to improvise such a flow!
Edward : Absolutely. A talent and spontaneity. Without any judgment as to the eyes of others.
K7 : No fireworks yes! We're gonna stop there or we could talk about hours and spoil the whole movie.
Louis : That's right! (laughs)
Edward : Thank you for this good analysis!
Criticism of Tropic
Édouard Salier, director
Édouard Salier has always bathed in the world of music, where he has directed numerous short films and video clips, notably by collaborating with French groups Air, Massive Attack, Justice or Metronomy. His short film Flesh was presented at the Venice Mostra in 2005 and Habana won the Grand Prix du court film at the Gérardmer Festival in 2015. In 2019, he also co-directed with Richard Minier the documentary Africa Mia which traces the influence of Cuban music in Mali. Tropic is his first feature film of fiction and the pledge of a director to follow...
Trailer ofTropic
[...] as a bonus to our present criticism, we urge you to read our interview with Ed Salier and the two main actors, Pablo Cobo (Lázaro) and Louis Peres (Tristán), in order to [...]
This group interview was captivating. And then, I had been able to meet Mathieu Plainfossé, his very talented leader op! 🙂