In an interview with Gabriel Galand, we have discussed his passion for
horror movies, what inspired him to make his film, “Horla”, and any challenges
he faced while in the process of the creation.
What
inspired you to produce this age old horror: Horla? Are you a fan of Guy De
Maupassant?
I’ve been a fan of
nineteenth century fantastic literature for as far as I can remember, from
Edgar Allan Poe in the US, to Robert Louis Stevenson in the UK and Guy de
Maupassant in France. I’m fascinated by their ability to mix realism with
fantasy, something that works well on screen too! I chose to produce Horla in
particular because of its suspense and how the story evolved around one central
location.
Bringing a short
story to life is not easy. Could you tell us about your creative direction?
My wish was to
establish a fresh visual style whilst still remaining in the realms of 19th
century etiquette so there was an extensive amount of research done in
pre-production. The production designer, Laura Katz, joined the project early
and we spent time together just imagining how it
would look and
browsing antiquités around France.
The film is lush
with furniture and decor from the 19th century. Where did you find such a
beautiful venue?
We’d been looking
for the perfect location for a few months but we hadn’t found any that even
remotely fit in our budget; when the production designer found a 19th century
mansion she felt she could work with. We had agreed previously on the color
palette and the style we were going for and I trusted her to bring all the
rest, which she did!
The cinematography
was brilliant in Horla. How did you capture the eerie suspense in your film?
Maria Lis, the
director of photography, was always adamant about wanting to work alongside the
production designer and myself so that the three of us would know exactly where
the others were heading image-wise. In particular, we all agreed that we wanted
to make a period with a modern touch, and we knew we could achieve that with
our use of color, the art and of course the lighting. I am very fond of
artificial lighting and how it can affect the mood, by using odd sources of
lights and shaping them differently. For instance, the director of photography
built a few scary-looking cookies in pre-production just for certain scenes of
the film.
What started you in
making horror films?
I love the
aesthetics of horror films. There are many types of horror but what I have
always liked is films that have a defined visual style, such as The
Ring or The Antichrist. There is a certain aura about these films
whereby on the first frame you see, you start feeling uncomfortable, all
because of the care and the time it took to create it. Or for instance,
when I see a night scene that doesn’t look like crap, I know it’s a horror
film.
What are the
difficulties in creating a period film?
The most evident
one is budget but it’s not always a constraint. It’s important to know
straightaway what we will be able to achieve and what is off the table from the
start. It’s also crucial to decide whether we will stick to the science of an
era (historical or futuristic) or decide to invent a whole new world. Both ways
are quite challenging but eventually I would say it pays off!
What advice could
you give young film makers trying to adapt literature to film?
To make an
adaptation successful, I’d recommend forging your own idea of the story because
that interpretation will help you transform the piece into a
screenplay. In my case, the screenwriter and I struggled with the original
structure of the story because we didn’t imagine it would work well as a
flashback film. Since most of the diary entries in “Le Horla” are
juxtapositions of suppositions and ideas, visually, the lack of action would
kill the suspense.
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