JB had already met Laura. He remembers she always liked him. This New Year’s Eve 1999, he will not let her escape. When she tells him that she and her son are HIV positive, JB wants to continue to believe in love … Before the heart of beautiful writing by Charlotte Samson and Jean-Philippe Amar Arte TV movie, this touching story Love the shadow of AIDS is that of Frederik Peeters (author include Koma and Lupus ), which told in a comic book released in 2001, blue pills, subtle blend of seriousness and humor, pragmatism and poetry. In the film, Fred and Cati became JB and Laura, in the guise of great Gouix William and Florence Loiret-Caille, and even the creation of the album was integrated scenario in a bold curveball. Strange experience for the designer, who followed with a bit of distance adaptation of his book and its history, nearly fifteen years after having lived. He gives us his impressions.
How did you react to the draft screen adaptation?
It was at least the fourth time that I was offered to adapt blue pills. No project was not successful, and I thought it would still be the case. In fact, I have a fairly simple report with this: the book that matters is the next one. From the moment my book is read, it is no longer mine.
Do not you fear that the spirit of the book is denatured?
It there is not a bad movie that destroys a good book … as long as the book is good! If I had the impression of dealing with marketing professionals, I’d saved me. Now I was faced with people who had probably a different view from mine but were driven by an artistic ambition. I told them: “Take it, triturate it, transform it. “There were only two points on which I stood still vigilant …
Which?
I absolutely wanted the love story is credible. And I think that’s the case. There is a real chemistry between the two actors. The other important point was not to treat the disease so pathetic, tearful. But I do not really have any anxiety: the writers were aware of the need to preserve this tone, this sort of irony to HIV, which is the main interest of the book
Contrary to what many people imagine, film and comics are two very different languages. If you decide to adapt the comic assuming that each box gives a plan, we get a film eighteen minutes! The comic is the art of the ellipse. The writers are forced to fill in the blanks, reorganize temporality … and they had carte blanche. The rest is a matter of perspective. For example, they chose to show the scene where the character told his parents of his partner’s HIV status and his son, because they found a narrative and emotional interest. When I created the book, it seemed more fun, closer to my way of seeing things not to show the ad, but his preparation: Cati is going to cut my hair, and I’m outta here the mouth of the stool. I find it more allusive, a little finer.
And when you see it on the screen, this scene you she just looks?
No at all compared to what I experienced. But in the scenario, it is consistent. My relation to the film’s complicated: I will not play the game of seven errors! The book was already not an exact copy of my memories. I had to find tricks, close moments that had nothing to do with each other. This is a somewhat hybrid object. And fifteen years later, people come take a fresh look above, actors seize it … For me, the experience of the viewer is impossible. I can not tell you whether or not I liked the movie.
Extract from BD Blue Pills Frederik Peters – Editions Atrabile
But you do not feel betrayed .. .
No, not at all! The discomfort I feel is not related to the quality of the film but the strangeness of the experience. However, I am quite puzzled by the description of the work of cartoonist and the environment. It also has very few examples of films that give a fair picture of this business. The cartoonists are often portrayed as backward and teens that environment as an underground world, sharp …
Are you saying that the film was not well aware of what was the creating blue pills ?
Not only blue pills. Often the movies, when a writer can not write, he dies. But a cartoonist prevented from drawing can become a waiter in a cafe, it does not matter … When describing a writer, there is always a deep noble dimension, complex, which is not not found in the case of drawing. The emulation that existed in the world of comics in the late 1990s, the creation of all these publishers, exchanges between creators cultivated, passionate … I experienced it as the birth of the surrealist movement ! But I understand this gap in the film: the book itself was not an accurate picture of the world
Director Jean-Philippe Amar had the good idea to integrate your drawings. fiction …
My participation is not really creative to the extent that I responded to the request of the director. I loved the sequence where my drawings unfold as if they were being plotted. But I am more skeptical about the animated sequences: I think they release something artificial. My respect goes, while the soul of the cartoonist is its trait. It jumped me in the eyes, but around me nobody winced! This is probably purely egocentric …
How would you like the film to be perceived?
I do not even ask me questions about my books. Anyway, I do not want the public sees a message or life lesson. I do not see myself as a prophet or a moralist people live the life they want … It’s not for me to explain that “AIDS is not so terrible” or that “you have to like different people.” Fortunately, the film does not give that feeling.
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