Sardonicast - Sardonicast 216: Obsession, Body Double feat. Jérémie Périn

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

Listen early and ad-free at https://sardonicast.com or https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast. Merch: https://ymsmerch.com/products/normie-masterpiece-sticker-sheet Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sardonicast.bsky.social Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Sardonicast Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8AhJ0bzQgs5fb9m_ZCRqkw/featured Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@YMS Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Jake's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ManCarryingThing Jake's movie channel: https://www.youtube.com/@womancarryingman Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/yms.bsky.social Jake's twitter: https://x.com/ManCarrying Jake's bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mancarryingthing.bsky.social Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Jake's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mancarryingthing Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Timestamps: 0:00 Obsession (bonus discussion) 44:29 Intro + guest interview 1:40:22 Body Double 2:24:28 Questions 2:56:00 Recommendation + outro

Hello, attention, everybody. This is a typical intro because we are recording this part after we had recorded the other stuff. So basically, the movie Obsession came out in theaters. We didn't realize it was going to be something that we all wanted to see. But we also had a guest episode planned for this week. And it was already a lot to talk about with the guest. We wanted to ask him a lot of questions. and after having just recorded it, it did go on for over two hours.

So it wouldn't have made sense to try and fit the obsession discussion in with the guest present because it was already late for him and we didn't want to make him commit to seeing another entire movie to discuss when he's already doing as a favor by being on the podcast. So we decided we could just record our thoughts about this movie after talking with the guest and then place it at the beginning of the episode. So, if you want to hear the guest, Jeremy, Perrin, I think is how he pronounced it. It was close. It was close.

If you want to hear his stuff, just skip to that point in the video. But here's obsession, and we figure more people would click on the video anyway. All of our intros will be coming like 40 minutes, 30 minutes of the podcast. Not the time for that, okay? It's going to be a chunky episode. Who cares? Where does this film come from? Like, it's just sideswiped everybody

and like, I'm kind of blown everyone out. I'm so mad that I missed it because I think it did premiere as Midnight Madness at TIF last year. It did. Yeah, I was reading that. Yeah. And I wasn't even aware of

the director as a YouTube presence. Like, I wasn't... Me neither. It just wasn't in my algorithm is what an Oscar voter would say about fucking the Palm Door winner. I think it was like big on TikTok, right? Apparently, yeah, I'm not really a TikTok boy.

He's got a big. a big YouTube channel I've seen a few of them like I've been watching some of them since seeing the movie and they're really funny and I find that really interesting that kind of overlap of the comedy and the horror and finding that

but yeah the balance there and it plays into the movie and Curry Barker directed some other like horror shorts that went pretty viral on YouTube and also like an hour long film called Milk and Serial that also went very viral on YouTube

yeah no that's when I haven't seen yet I watched the chair after watching obsession anyway so we decided we had to like fucking put this in this episode because I think we all loved it right

it sucked no yeah it was amazing we want people to see it in theaters so there's your first piece of advice other than go outside and shower it's always great advice for our audience yeah true

I believe wash yourself watch obsession in theaters made for under a million dollars. Insane. It says Blumhouse, but it doesn't feel like one because he got attached to it after it was made. Right. Yeah, reaping the rewards. Yeah.

Jason, you don't deserve this. But wow, like, I love watching something where it has a distinct stock. that adds to the feeling and presence of a movie, especially when it comes down to something like lighting. Yes. Not enough movies do this. And weirdly enough, not enough horror movies do this

because watching this, it almost seems like it should be like an obvious thing. Because in so many other horror movies, you might see something that looks like some of the shots in this film where a character's face is like obscured from shadow and they're just like in the dark. Like it's almost similar to The strangers or whatever

I think there might have been a You know like oh you can't see who's really out there And you know it's scary But this had more of This had so much more consistency when it came to the overall feel of the movie throughout I actually watched it for a second time in theaters Because I there were some friends that I wanted to Show it and I saw it a week early at SIF

Like before the official release date And one thing thing I picked up on was like even during scenes that are at daytime, they don't explicitly feel like daytime. It's like, oh, it's daytime from the windows. You can see some daylight outside. And even inside, there's so much more shadow taking place than you are going to see in any, you know, most other movies. Shadow was like such an important aspect to the to the visuals in this film. And I found it awesome. And it wasn't like movies where it's like, it's hard to see because it's like literally lit.

It was like everything that was hard to see was because it was intentional. Yes. The sense of intent and self-awareness is something that carried this film in many aspects. It's script as well. Yeah. I mean, I feel like what makes this movie stand apart more than even the visuals, the performances are extraordinary. But at the end of the day, I think it's just a great script.

You know, it takes a very, very simple horror concept. You know, what if you can... could make a wish that your crush was in love with you, you know, and it takes it with this type of seriousness, like very earnestly investigating, like who these characters are and what it would mean for a person to go through this. But also with a sense of like self-awareness and there's comedy there, you know, it's a funny movie. But because it is taking the concept so seriously and investigating what that means, it is deeply upsetting.

Like, I was getting extreme anxiety, and I, like, wanted the movie to end in a very good way, you know, and I haven't done that in such a long time. Alex, I was listening to your review of it. I was kind of spoiling myself for this conversation, but I wanted to know what you, sometimes I do that with you guys, I want to know what you had to say.

But when you mentioned, like, you don't usually have this type of reaction to horror movies. I felt exactly the same way. I was like plugging my ears near the end. I was like, I cannot handle this. It got under my skin. There's something psychologically disturbing about what it's getting out with the horror here and the horror concepts and a lot of the implications.

And, you know, a concept we were talking about during the interview that's going to be coming up, I guess. In the future. In the future. Yeah, yeah. About, yeah, this idea of leaving things and I'm interested in just giving you the right of amount of information for you to fill in the blanks and the simplicity of some of the horror here is so effective um just like a phone call can be the scariest scene in the movie or just a face

obscured in the corner of a room can send a chill down your spine and make your blood go cold um and yeah the sound design all of it all the filmmaking like feeding into that but yeah i haven't been this scared at horror movie since hereditary for kind of some similar reasons um with these kind of, oh, what was that in the background? What was that? Why do they move so weird just then? Like, what was that? Yeah, and then the whole, um, just the quality of these lead performances.

I was just blown away by indie, um, the Nikki character. Andy Debra. Yeah. Yeah. Where did she come from? Cause that, whoa. She like, like the concept is good and the writing is good, but the way she sells it. It's like, what a fun way of expressing like a character like that and a challenging

performance for her to whip out. and the commitment to the bit of just letting the camera sit and letting the actors act and play out this performance and yeah, just the whole monkey poor wish fulfillment nature of it. And I don't know about you, Jake, on your video, if you've been getting any kind of like weird interpretations of this movie or like, there's been some kind of weird stuff about like, obviously, at the heart of it,

there's this kind of entitlement to this main character and the way he's reacting to this wish fulfillment. And he's just taking, all the wrong decisions are making the worst decisions possible. Yeah. And some people seem to be like taking it as like a, I got a weird comment that was something like, oh yeah, another lonely men are bad movie.

And it's like what? A lot of these kind of responses seem to be like kind of self-reports in a way. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of what the film is about. It's like this weird like entitlement and like this feeling of ownership over women. just through this kind of magical concept. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, there could be something.

I mean, I haven't really looked at my comments on the video. But, I mean, I feel like the movie could elicit that reaction because it works on two levels in a sense where it's like you are scared for this guy who comes across very sympathetic. You know, it's like he, in the start of the film, he comes across sympathetically and you're relating to him completely because like he didn't know. making this wish was going to do this like obviously and and but throughout the course of the film he makes decisions uh that become apparent like uh that he he is um okay to some degree with what's happening to her and his selfishness and you know so it works on two levels where you're scared of her but you're even more scared of him and what he is letting happen to her you know um it's it's really remarkable how it kind of lures you in. And I think a much worse movie would have made this

kind of more like a social commentary hitting you on the head type of thing. Um, where it just would have been like, oh, this guy's a douchebag, you know, from the start. Like, oh, this guy's an entitled in cell or whatever. But because the performances in the writing, it, it kind of tricks you into really falling into the narrative that the main character is believing too. So it's, uh, it's really special. Well, I think it's done in such a way that like even if, you know, our perspectives and our experiences, we'd watch something like this and be like, okay, yeah, there's there's some obviously toxic shit going on in his mind about like what he needs from her, right? There's like, like it almost starts with a weird codependency idea from him. What was owed to him? We're able to

do that. But at the same time, I think that his character is, you know, it's a weird codependency idea. It's, is something that is so, like, not far-fetched that there is some element of, like, maybe not relatability, maybe relatability, but, like, understandability from... Believability is the better way to put it. Thank you. Yeah, I've known people like this. Like, you can see a lot of people that would feel that way. Like, there's... Yeah.

You know, it's such a not foreign concept to... if you've socialized and gone outside and met people, you know, or maybe if you haven't, maybe it's you. You know, I don't know. Yeah,

no, it's, it's handled really well. It's the type of story where it could easily have turned into something that feels like weird with the dynamics at play. Weird in a bad sort of like meta way, not weird in the intentional ways. But it very clearly has a strong sense of self-awareness

with how it's treasurer. the story and it's not delicate. It's not like walking on eggshells trying to make some sort of like ooh I hope I don't offend people type film. It doesn't feel for each at all.

No, not at all. But it's smart about how it approaches it and having a film that very clearly is confident about what it's showing and we're able to discern that it is self-aware about everything that it's doing

that goes a long way. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was thinking a lot about, like, erotic thrillers, you know, movie like Fatal Attraction about, like, the crazy, obsessed lady who causes havoc and everything. And this movie is kind of taking that to a level of, like, okay, well, what if Michael Douglas wished for that to happen, you know? And you kind of, like, reap what you so. And I think what was such a smart decision about the movie was to let Real Nicky peek through the curtains, you know?

Yeah. That makes it so much scary. Yeah. I mean, she is that, that was the scariest part. It's like, what is that happening to her? Oh, yeah. Do you guys want to get into spoilers? I mean, yeah, we're kind of describing some things that happen.

Okay. So, but like the decision. Spoilers, everybody. When he calls the support line, right, for the magic wand or whatever, he calls the support line. And he's like, they're like, do you want to cancel a wish? And he's like, well, I want to alter it. It's like, even at this point, he's still like, no, I want her to be like my slave, basically. Yeah. And then you hear her screams, you know, through the phone. It's just there's something so horrifying about the, concept i mean i don't know what was it what moments for you guys hit that yeah that seemed really

fuck with me um or on a similar line when they kind of establish that when she's sleeping she can the real her can sneak out a little bit yeah when she's begging kill me yeah kill me yeah but his response though is what is telling he's like well am i that bad to like date like if it makes it about him he's always making it about him and not even thinking about hey worst case scenario that he's put her in and all these chances he had to do something about it yeah exactly he's making it about himself and it's so fucked up like empathizing with her she's such this she's so helpless and every time you see yeah these little fragments of what she's going through and that very last shot when she like finally is freed but it's you know it's bittersweet

because like her life's ruined like everything is fucked like everything is fucked yeah yeah yeah yeah i i love a movie that uh first of all the the sound scale of the soundtrack and like the emotions that are being conveyed as it's doing, you know, things that are scary, emotionally disturbing, but also have like so much levity in terms of the comedic self-awareness. All of that taking place within this like very, very dreamy soundscape, something that's almost like kind of reminiscent of like maybe Silent Hill or almost kind of like, 80s

feeling almost kind of like some lynchian stuff too actually in terms of like feeling and emotion from the score I love all of that coming together with the

strong visual style and use of shadows like the 4 by 3 and you know a lot of space being left over character's heads in so many scenes like the frame It's just such a confident art piece for such a weird but like, you know, familiar concept, but seen through in ways where you can tell like, okay, yeah, this person knows exactly what they want to do and they're having fun with it. And they know, they want you to feel fucked up.

They're not afraid of having people feel uncomfortable. They're not afraid of showing a dead animal in the first, like, few minutes of the film, you know? Like, that's a concept that, like, a lot of people would immediately... Just... A lot of people find that very difficult to see in Mic Meteor and so, yeah. That's the thing. Like, I saw a comment from... I don't remember where I saw the comment.

I posted about it, I guess, on Twitter or YouTube, but... Someone left a comment just being like, oh, yeah, this unnecessary animal death at the beginning. It's as if the person showing it is like harming them in a way that was like not for the artistic purpose. They didn't actually kill the cat. Oh yeah, no. Yeah, I agree. But there's a reason why a website like does the dog die exist, you know, is because people, there's a lot of people that are like really sensitive to that sort of thing. But I do find it necessary in this film because, you know,

the first death we see otherwise is like a significant way through the film. And it's fucking awesome. But we needed something at the beginning for the filmmaker to say unequivocally, I'm not fucking around here. Like, I'm not fucking around here. And then after you establish that early on into the movie, that he's not fucking around both a conceptually from what type of like horror concept

or like the death being an option and they're not being protected classes of characters for death to affect. But also emotionally, because immediately after that, it's not just an animal death, it's, oh, our main character

that we've seen for a very brief an amount of time is like bawling about it. And then the fucking title card coming in from the bed, like, ooh, there's an emotional weight to this. It's not just, oh, silly animal death or something.

Like, no, you're feeling it. You're feeling what it meant to this character. And that is brutal, and I love it. And you're not fucking around. That's what I want to feel in a horror movie is that they're not fucking around. It feels like anything could happen. Exactly.

When Nikki is on screen, that's what's so scary is that every time he leaves the house, every time he comes back, it evokes that sense of dread that is unique to this movie. And I think also people who, you know, who have dealt with and love people who have had mental health issues, you know.

Like that's a big part of the unresolved. predictability of it. And that's something this movie really captures. It's very frightening. Yeah. Abusive relationships. Yeah. Abusive relationships and kind of like love bombing and just taking that to this extreme degree for horror's sake. And some of the imagery that comes from that, like the tape on the door and just him kind of like, oh my God. He's just kind of like coping silently through it. Like just taking so long. And the way he does nothing, the way he tries to justify it with his friends and everything, that's another part of it. That's just like, oh my God. God, like, this is, this needs to stop.

Yeah, because I think a part of him just want so badly to have been in a relationship with her in the first place that he's like, well, you know, I'll take what I can get, you know, when his other friend is like. Exactly, yeah. And people get kind of like love drunk, too. Yeah. Stuff like that. It's, yeah, it's a very, like, complicated, fucked up thing. But also, like, that flower pot shot as well. Like, it's so scary and unnerving.

Such great imagery. The scene where she's watching him sleep, that, In my theater, at least, there were people who stood up to walk out. They were like, no, uh-uh. It's like, this is amazing. Yeah, and the movement as well. Yes. I was just going to mention that.

Yeah. Go for it. Well, so what's important about this film in terms of its level of self-awareness and what it's like not afraid to show is that early on when she initially, you know, like right after he breaks the one wish willow or whatever, she's outside of the house. and then comes in, rests her head on the dash, and then starts, I forget exactly what the dialogue is. But as she's like turning her head,

like she's facing downwards and then turning her head up to face him, again, her face is mostly obscured by shadow. But you can still tell just based off of like her body being very rigid and not moving much. That sounds that she's making, and it was both dialogue and, like heavy breathing, like sighing or whatever in response to things that he was saying. You can tell that the sounds that she's making, maybe not consciously, are ADR. You can tell that they're recorded after the fact. And by you can tell, I mean, like a part of your brain knows it, right?

Something in your consciousness knows that something is off about that. And more people, the more that you understand about filmmaking, the more you'll be able to identify that. That is very similar to what's happening in that. bedroom scene where she's watching him sleep and other parts of the film as well, where they would reverse shots. You know, they'd film it in reverse to give a more uncanny movement or like speed up, slow down footage.

And again, more media literate people who understand a bit more about like the production of filmmaking will be able to articulate and identify it. But even people who don't know that something is wrong, right? There's a reason why the uncanny valley exists where your brain is getting fed information about something, a human or any kind of like being or the shape or the face or how it moves. But as long as something is off enough that there's a part of your brain that knows like, okay, that's not what it's supposed to be doing or moving or looking like. that triggers like a very instinctual fear response that's like in our DNA

basically. Like fucking terrifying. And they do that a few times. Like my favorite is when she I think it was like during the argument in the second half of the there's one of the arguments in the second half

after the duct tape on the door. She's like in the middle oh yeah they're arguing about whether or not she's in invited to the friends thing. Like in the middle of the argument, she's saying things and her mouth is open and she's like in slow motion,

kind of like taking this lunge walk backwards. And it doesn't show it for very long. It shows it for just long enough to be like, what the fuck? Like it's a terrifying thing to see. And like the rest of the scene continues on as normal. And obviously the main character is terrified too. But just so many lovel.

lovely, like, editing choices like that where most filmmakers would be afraid to show something like that because to anyone with media literacy, it's so obviously apparent what's happening. Like, oh, you reverse the footage or you slowed it down or something like that. So many filmmakers are afraid to do something like that with a serious tone. But this film is so self-aware, it even implies, I think, directly through choices like that and also like the tavern therein being named like Barker's Tavern, right? Like it's like the director's like and there's a clear shot of this. Right.

Signage too in the background. The director is essentially saying like, no, this is my world. Added to the fact with all of this uncanny, unconventional lighting where you, again, exact same feeling. You look at the lighting in this movie and even if you're not media literate and are able to articulate everything about it, some part of your brain knows this is off. Right? This is like a dream. Something is not real here. And I think because of all of those aspects combined, it gives itself a lot more levity or a lot more freedom, leeway, I meant, in order to do things that might not be logically consistent throughout or be able to have weird, humorous, self-aware moments. But also just like the entrancing nature of like the, fear. Like you're being in a fucking nightmare. You're like transported into this fucking world. And I love it. It's all the different elements of filmmaking coming together and working symbiotically. How was the horror on a second watch without the surprise element

just as effective? I mean, everything I loved about it, I still loved about it. The horror element in terms of like me being scared was less effective but I think it had more to do with the fact that like the first screening was at the SIF downtown theater with like really loud sound and a great screen and the second screening I saw was like

kind of out of town near like a friend's house that was like at an AMC and it wasn't like the fucking you know it wasn't like the Primo theater it was like more people inside a smaller space and like worse air conditioning in a smaller screen and not as loud. So I think that's more, well, that contributes some part to why it wasn't as scary, but I still loved everything just as much. I still felt the same way.

And I appreciated more about like the overall tone and engrossing nature of the soundscape and all of these different elements. I mean, it shows you, you don't need insane theatrics and special effects and pirate techniques to convey horror. I mean, this movie, it's literally just sound, music, visuals, performance. Like, it's just, her performance is unreal. I mean, to me, it's like Jack Nicholson and The Shining. It's just, it's physical. It's beyond.

It's, it could have been too much. You know, it almost was, but that's what's so perfect about it is that it is, it is, it, It's not afraid to go to the highs of cartoon level. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's what makes it so fucking disturbing. And I think everyone's performance was great. Hers is obviously a standout.

But even more so, the reason why all the performances work so well is because every single one of them knows exactly what project they're in. No one is doing anything different, right? They're getting direction. and they probably, you know, were shown or have even participated in other short films from the same director with, you know, kind of an inkling of like what he's going for. Even though, you know, the short film that I saw, still good, but like entirely different caliber, I guess. I think also a reason why this movie may be resonating so much with people is that it is, you know, it's a Gen Z director like Curry Barker is like, what, 25, 26? or something. And I feel like he has an understanding of just how young people talk, especially about

relationships, you know, and it feels extremely contemporary and relevant. So I think that's another thing. It's just like, oh, shit, someone is seeing what we're seeing and talking about it, you know. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The aspects I was explaining earlier even with how clearly it's, you know, clearly. intentionally like he's creating this other world almost. Like his film world is like its own thing.

Also allowed it so that, you know, normally I would be bothered by something like, okay, this is a bar loud environment and the, you know, the characters are not talking as though they're in that environment. You know, they're not yelling in this bar. Normally I would be bothered by something like that. But in this scenario, it's like whether intentional or otherwise, it does add to like the dreamy something is often. nature that is expressed through so many other aspects of the film.

Yeah, like the weird shop where they get the Mcuffin from and these like quirky shopkeepers. And those are like comedy scenes basically. Yes. They're like just straight up like silly comedy for a lot of it. But it really works with that contrast and this kind of escalation from this main character. And it's just willing to like sit and develop a scene too and like really just. play it out like I really love that that block game party scene yeah where that goes but she like reads the because she's a writer it's established earlier in the morning morning in the movie before she's

taken over and in that scene I don't think you get to see what is on the block she picks up but that she like stands up and delivers this yeah it's like Hansel and Gretel like incest story and it's like yeah oh my god is this like part of the real one inside like trying to nod at she mentioned something about like seeing him as a brother or something it's like what's the intention here and there's another moment right before she smashes herself in the face where she makes a comment like indicating like oh is this like the real her for just a minute that's making her do this and it's yeah that internal conflict that's going on with that character is like

fascinating and so so fucked up it was joking it's funny fine I wasn't joking deal with it yeah yeah all the extras like the acting is really good good in that too like there's like what the fuck like yeah like what is happening it but also like the awkwardness of it like no one wants to really address it and bears like yeah what do you do the the the in character like he he's like a good guy he's like presented as like a balance like just good friend um who's like trying to give him like relationship advice at the beginning and like kind of gently bringing it up to him throughout the movie and just like everyone's like something's what what is actually going on this is something not right about

about this situation and it really grounds it that kind of like the chemistry between everyone is so like believable when you buy they're this friend group and they've known each other a while and yeah it just like escalates how fucked up it is and and all the victims in it are just so like they just didn't deserve any of it is so unjust mm-hmm oh man and like the emotional punch of like fucking him opening the college acceptance letter like at the after she after her brain are on the fucking steering wheel. That scene was apparently supposed to be like seven seconds longer

before the MPAA was like, you have to cut that. Like apparently it was like even way more fucking ridiculous and lengthy. One of the smashes. Which I'm just like, oh yeah, like I need to see the fucking uncut version. Hopefully they release that, yeah. Like that needs to be something that's released somewhere I will fucking write because it's a finished

fucking thing. You have to. It's a respectable, like I respect the level of cruelty there. Like you built up so much empathy and sympathy for this character just to literally like indulge in the gore of her face things and that's right outside of the like cat stuff it's kind of the only real gore in the movie yeah is that for the most part and it is like quite a fucked up payoff because like you know something's coming the tension in that scene like you're sitting on it and that shot is just lingering there

like what's something's going to happen and it's just yeah it just comes out nowhere and it's so vicious it's like one of the few points in the movie where they're using like a normal song there's like one in the there's the the the uh fucking montage of them starting their relationship and then one yeah like in the car there too but both times it feels like disturbing it feels like oh this tone is like not real like this is this is this is not this this is an illusion this is like a trick right and And the film doesn't hide that. Like, it indulges in it, and it enjoys that it is setting you up with an uncomfortable feeling

that you know you're going to be seeing something fucked up. Like, they're going into fucking hell. You're along for the ride, even if you don't want to be. I also was thinking about this film, because I've mentioned jump scares before. and ones that bother me. And after I got out of the... And you love them all. Well, here's the thing.

So I got out of the first time I watched it after that screening. And my friend was like, yeah, well, you know, everybody loved it. But one of my friends also mentioned, like, that, you know, he's not a fan of, like, the jump scary parts. And I'm like, hmm, I didn't even really think. I didn't even consider any jumps scare. I didn't feel like there were any jump scares. And so I thought about that critically.

And on my second watch, I was kind of like paying more. attention to that element of it. And so the reason why, because there are what many people would- There are jump scares, yeah. There are what many people would consider jump scares in the film, and I wouldn't even argue with that. When I think of jump scares, the ones that bother me, whenever I'm like, you know, taken out of the film and I think about them, are when they're used in a way where they are essentially like a cheap replacement for something that is happening in the film's universe, or if specifically the non-diagetic sound is taking place either before or in replacement of or right on top of the beat, the moment, right? So, you know, there's a billion

examples, but I'm using sinners as an example because that's the one in my head. Like, right on the cut, this bhran, like sort of thing is like, okay, fuck, like Jesus, so annoying. But in this film, every time it uses a non-diagetic sound for a jump scare, it's not what initiates. It's not what starts. I was paying attention to this very carefully. The loud soundtrack jump scares would happen like after she says, what the fuck? So like they're making out on the bed for the first time or whatever. And then she goes like, wait, what the fuck?

And as she's falling over, then the sound happens. So the what the fuck, that is the initial moment that you're watching as an audience member and you feel like, oh, okay, the, the, the, It's the motion has been broken. That is the interruption. And then the non-diagetic, super loud soundtrack jump scare is something that emphasizes after the fact. It doesn't replace it. It's not the reason for things being interrupted, right? And so that's, I was, I'm glad I was able to watch it with that context because it helps me understand what, you know, my own perspectives are more on that. No, it's a great point. And it adds also to the unpredictability because it, you're Right, there's something special about the jump scares and that kind of like asymmetry, that sense of like it being slightly off.

Like the tempo is off. You know, there's something. It's not being playing into the typical tropes and just the sound. In every element of it, you feel like something is slightly off. That's why I felt so much anxiety. Like you just don't know what is going to happen and how it's going to feel when it happens. Yeah. And the way it kind of naturally builds up the rules of the universe, like mentioning that.

jump scare that moment where you see a flash of the real her. That's like a, oh my God, the implication of that. And then building on it with the phone call and like talking to that creepy guy, which I think is played by Curry Barker. Nice. Trying to get some way out of this and him learning that he basically has to take his own life is like the only way for the wish to stop working, giving him this kind of moral quandary that you probably probably should have called that

number way earlier in the movie. The second she dragged in the dead cat and made this like memorial or whatever. Yeah. It's when I'd be like, oh, look, this is not right. This has gone real wrong. But yeah, just the way it's strung along with him and this just won't address it. It just keeps getting worse and worse. Yeah, in this kind of organic way, despite how kind of insane the premises.

My head canon is that he was like keeping the cat in the fridge because he didn't know what to do with it. That's my interpretation or the freezer. It was a bit confusing. There's another element that I didn't love, which was like when his friend wishes for the billion dollars. Oh, that was so funny. Why didn't you love that? It was funny, but then in the immediate next scene, it was. You know, like he goes back to her apartment and then his friend is banging on the door like, dude, I have a billion dollars.

Yeah. I wondered if there was maybe like in an earlier cut they decided maybe not to include something. I don't know. It does feel, sorry, I didn't mean. No, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say, I do agree. It does feel like it kind of like conflicts with the continuity of it a bit.

Yeah, a little bit. But it's such a chaotic movie and especially at that point, things are happening. such a bizarre fucking way, like bam, bam, bam, beat after beat. It's so chaotic anyway that I kind of like love how fucking weird it feels. And again, um,

with, with all of the other elements of the film being like, okay, something is not right here. Something's often just a way where, you know, it's not, it doesn't stay consistent with what I've,

uh, experienced in other films sort of thing. Like, it doesn't feel out of place. as a whole in the greater art piece, I guess. No, it wasn't super jarring or anything. It's just, you know, a minor flaw. And they nod at some of the kind of comedic uses of the wish

with that kind of fake Reddit page where he's doing the research. There's like one in there. It's like, oh, my mom's like really hot now. It's attracted. Now she's hot. I need to see like a screenshot of all of them. It's a funny movie.

Like, I feel like my audience was kind of reluctant to laugh a little bit. So there was a point where I was literally the only one laughing at this year. I felt like a crazy person when he is rehearsing in the mirror trying to tell Nikki, we don't eat cat. We don't do that. And I was laughing so hard. And I was like, guys, it's funny. It's a joke.

Yeah. It's funny. Start laughing. It's funny. Yeah. I was going to do that. Yeah. I mean, it's a great.

It's a great movie. It's, it's beautiful and unique, and I'm glad that, like, people are connecting with it. And it's a success no matter what, because it's all right, you know, like, people are seeing it. Huge success, yeah. Made for a fucking less than a million dollars. So, like, holy crap. It's just unreal. I was thinking of not even watching it until I saw your, you discussed it.

I think you did a community post, right? Yeah, I did a community post. Yeah, and I was like, oh, shit. Because that was the embargo day. I was like waiting for a week. Different film festivals have different rules for, yeah. Right. It's building.

It's just like the momentum, you know, and everyone's like, oh shit, something of really high quality like this. People get hyped, especially horror. Like, what's the deal with horror right now? Like, it's, it feels like the, it's huge. There's booming. There's new voice. It seems like the most, the best way for, like, new young filmmakers to, like,

break in. And people actually, yeah, I was saying this also in the future. Yeah. It was like a curiosity element. Like people actually, you know, like people went out in droves to see talk to me. That's not a known IP, you know? This is the same. And it's, yeah, where a lot of the more interesting filmmaking is happening.

I look at weapons recently, too, like an original script, those original characters, like a cool weird structure and, like, that won an Oscar, for God's sake. Like, it is where a lot of the more interesting kind of stories are being told. Well, like, Bone Temple earlier in the year, like horror is just, it's where a lot of this stuff is at. I'm really enjoying what it's happening in that space. Yeah, now we just need original movies in the other genres as well. Yeah, please. Yeah, well, here's the thing.

If you see a shitty horror movie, I think there's some aspect of like, at least it will either have interesting gore or something or it'll be funny. Whereas if you see a bad drama, it's like you're trapped in an endless time loop for six years. And it's short. Horror movies are short, you know? It's just like, yeah, that's absolutely true. see a bad drama, you're like, fucking get me out of here. Like, I'm getting that nothing evidence. I would much rather watch a bad horror movie than a bad rom-com or, like, legal

thriller. I think most people feel that way. But yeah, everybody fucking watch obsession. I loved it. I saw it twice. I'd gladly see it again. Fucking release the extended cut. Jesus Christ. Like, Everybody fucking comment and tweet about that shit. Like, we demand that whatever physical release you have has to have the original uncensored cut. That's finished. Jason Blum, I swear to fucking God. I get on the full K.

Jason. Jason! Jason! Jason! Jason! I got to find Jason. Yeah, I see. We need that.

I need to see that. And I'm pissed. Jason Blum on the podcast next time? Oh, sure. Yeah. Let's do it. I'm pissed that I did. I didn't see it at fucking Tiff because I just had no idea, you know.

I wasn't aware of this person's YouTube channel. I was like... Well, yeah, it's just come out of nowhere. You're out of touch, old man. Well, I mean, I'm pretty good at finding things, but... You missed it. You missed it. Can't win them all.

Can't win them all. For a first picture, too. Like, dude, I can't wait to see what he does next. Like, these... I'm reading things about like a ghost investigator kind of story or something. Sure. Yeah. He's doing Texas chainsaw.

It's so, it was so smart and well realized that I'm just like on board for whatever his next thing is. I'm like, okay, I trust that this, whatever you make next will also be smart and well realized. Maybe different. Maybe, maybe the same. Who cares? Yarp. All right. Yarp.

I give this film a nine out of ten. Cool. Awesome. I'm just a smidge below. I think. This is a really high, like, four style for me. could go up on a rewatch. Yeah, I thought this was excellent.

Original, the derivative parts are self-aware. I love this like McGuffin wishbox thing, the design of that. These performances are just like next level, especially for the Nicki character. Yeah, this is wonderful stuff. Yeah, I'm going eight out of ten as well, but I have a feeling it's only going to go up when I see it again, which I plan to. Yeah, it's great. On a second watch, I noticed some things like when he's having a conversation with his friend in the car. There's like a very intentional like when he's like, why are you asking me about that?

He's like, oh, you know, because and then he like scratches his head. And then he says, then he takes a little bit of time and then starts talking about how like it's a really bad look for you because everybody's seeing it. The implication is that like, oh no, because initially he was only asking because he used to be dating or like he was. having like a like right yeah off like playing sort of thing so it's like I love that even on a second watch you can like ooh I have the full context of like what's actually happening with every character before it starts happening and feels things feel consistent within that like it is very smart all right everybody uh without further ado keep listening the future the past the future wait no we're from the future the past is happening now so the real

start of the episode is happening now and this was just bonus content at the beginning. So here's the regular intro, everybody. Thanks. Enjoy. Three, two, one. What a terrible way to die, especially when you're so claustrophobic. I'm Adam from your movie sucks. This is Sardonicast. Hello, everybody. That was a quote from Body Double. Nice. I'm Alex from I'm going to go with, we have one of these in Star Hors. Remember that one? I'm Jake from Man Caring Thing and I'm going to say my name is Jake

don't you remember I'm the guy who tried to fuck you on the beach I do include that because my name is in the movie so special residence you know and we have a special guest hello yeah hello thank you for having me I'm Jeremy of course Jeremy Perrin to be complete.

And do I have to present myself right now? I mean, it would be, yeah, I mean, if people... It would be nice, not in the middle of the podcast, maybe, yeah, sure. Who are you? Why are you here? Who are I? I'm a director and a screenwriter in the animation. I'm doing animated movies.

I made one animated movies. for the moment. I directed also the first season of a TV show called Last Man. And before that, I made some music videos and some shorts and stuff like that. But yeah, my latest and only for the month movie is Mars Express. Perfect. So, yeah, I've been a fan since Die Fantasy. Sam. That was something when that appeared on YouTube. I remember that it got a lot of clicks.

I know that the curiosity of the clicker probably had something to do with the thumbnail, literally just being the shot of someone's hand down the bottom swimsuit. But I watched the video, and that was something where back in the day, people would be linking it as like disturbing things to watch or there might be a question thread on a forum saying like, oh, what's one of the more weird or fucked up things you've seen on the internet? And people would link that. And I think that it's genuinely fantastic.

I love how well the visuals fit with the tone of the song as well, and that it's willing to show something. So cool and extreme. It's like cosmic horror, right? Yes, yes. Just leaving that open. And there's the cosmic horror elements of Last Man too, which I really enjoy. Just animation and horror, I feel like go together so well.

And there's just, I don't know, there's so much room to this day to explore that space. And I'd love to see more of that. Yeah, that was the first start, the first idea behind that clip, behind that music video was, before it became a music video, I wanted to do a show. short horror animated film. And why that? Because I was like, how can I manage horror in animation? Because you, the general idea about animation, that is for kids.

So I was like, but can we bring animation in horror? And of course, I knew already it was possible since Japanese made a lot of horror animated series, not series, but OVA or some movies as well. But I was like, can I, am I able to do that? And how the audience would respond

to a Western proposition around that. So, but in the field of the short films, so it's, it's, the ambition is not so big, but in the end it became something that many, many people watched way more than I expected because it was a time when it was released. YouTube was famous, of course, but it was still chaotic there.

There was not so much algorithm. Yeah, big business hadn't found it yet. Yeah, it was more wild there. So, and nowadays, by the way, the music video is canceled from YouTube. Yeah. You can't find the official video. You can find it if you dig. It's on Vimeo.

Yeah, it's on Vimeo. It's probably on YouTube as well, but reposted by some obscure guy or I don't know. But the official one with the millions of views have disappeared, unfortunately. There is a weird double standard when it comes to YouTube because on one end they have these content policies about what's allowed on their website. But time and time again, you see if it's a large company or a large label, those policies don't exactly apply. So if universal Warner music group or whatever, you'll notice that music videos like, you know, Wop. Like that. pretty sexually explicit in ways where

like I've been demonetized for showing clips in films that I'm talking about that are you know not nudity not sex but you know some degree of sexuality and those get demonetized and you'll actually notice when you're

uploading videos that there's there's like these checkboxes for what can be monetized one of them specifically states you're not allowed to use this unless it's in a music video and and that exception exists specifically because you know the larger companies want to monetize their songs and have you know salacious sex cells music videos that would normally be

allowed on television so I'm I'm kind of curious why maybe maybe if die fantasy was uploaded again and someone like fought one of the take down notices not takedown notices the uh community guideline strikes. Maybe there's a chance that it would stay back up today, but who knows, it's always irritating that they don't apply

the rules across the point. Yeah, the policies on YouTube, but I guess it's the same on every social networks and, you know, all those huge sites on internet. Their policies, they change them all the time.

So you never know, what could happen and something that was allowed, sorry, at some point can be banned at some other. It's really, yeah. It happens to me all the time. There's nothing we can do about it, it seems. But I don't know. Maybe those sites shouldn't be private. True.

I mean, we should socialize that kind of. of social network. Because I don't know, but for me, YouTube is a social network in a way. It's a public utility. It should be a public utility. Yeah.

So with that DiFantasy music video, was the popularity of that where you leveraged to get onto Last Man? Like, what was the journey there? It's because I made that music video, indeed that my producer I'm working with. So I'm... naming my producer, my producer is, I don't owe my producer, but anyway.

I mean, it's because of that music video that Didier Krest, my producer, hired me to direct Last Man indeed, because he was searching for a director. Last Man is the adaptation of a French comic book and the three authors, drawer of that comic book, didn't have time to take this in charge as an animated series. So they gave my name. I didn't know them before,

but they knew that music video, fantasy. So they gave my name to that producer, and I met him and we were agree. And that's how I was able to be, the director of that series. It's because at that time, there was not so much example of a French director who managed that kind of animation. Nowadays, it's different.

Many, many other directors here are proved themselves in the genre. I mean, not only horror, I mean, inaction-packed. animation, in sci-fi, in whatever the format, because it can be about commercials or

music videos or sometimes TV series like Arcane has been made in France, you know, the TV show Arcane and also the adaptation of Splinter Cell has been made in France.

So, you know, nowadays, there's many more example and people that are into that kind of animation. To be honest, a lot of animators were already in that

kind of animation. They wanted to do that in a way, but they didn't have the possibility to do it because the French animation industry was a lot made for kids. It was

mostly TV show for kids. Or if you had something more adult-oriented, it was more for movies and more very serious movies, like historical movies or drama based on personal life of refugees or, I don't know, which is okay, of course. I can like that kind of movie. But it was only that type of movie. you know, you didn't have the possibility of making the adventure of a robot and a human on Mars, you know, at that time. Yeah, we've seen that almost everywhere in Western animation, the idea that now finally there's some projects where people have proven themselves enough or audiences have proven that they want something. And I keep telling people all the time on my platforms, if you want more of something, you want more of something. something, you have to let people know you have to vote with your wallet, you have to post

about it on social media, because industry is paying attention. They look at those things, and if they see that there's a market for that, then they're more likely to fund those types of projects. Yeah, true. After all, they changed the face of Sonic in Sonic movies after people came out on Twitter. So, yeah, indeed. And to be fair, I should say that I'm not the one, of course, in France or even less in the Western world, who made animation

for adults and of course not because there was Ralph Bakshi before in the United States and in Canada, was he working in Canada as well? I think so. I'm not sure. But anyway, but also in France we had

Renee Lalu who was a director who made only three animated movies, but But all of them are sci-fi. Is that Fantastic Planet? Yeah, Fantastic Planet, Time Master and Gendar. I don't know Gendar. If the title is the same in English or if it's the same time.

It shows up the same in English here. But Fantastic Planet is one of the first movies we talked about on this podcast. Yeah, great feeling. Yeah, sure. It's a classic now. Yeah, true, true. People are a bit bored about always mentioning fantastic. planet, but it's important.

It's a classic for a reason. I love the movie anyway. There's a reason why people still talk about it. It's a normie masterpiece, yeah. True. Yeah. Indeed. But just to say that we have here in France

some sort of a tradition of doing weird animated films and sometimes they are really good, but there's no until now, Maybe, maybe. It was every 10 years, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't an industry.

It wasn't something on a large scale, you know. It was like some guy struggled a lot and he succeeded in doing one film and then it's difficult for him to do another one after all. Yeah. I say he or him because I'm. At that time, it was mostly many movies, of course. In animation, like in live action, it's the same problem. But yeah. Do you think the tides are changing with, like, the general attitude towards the medium of animation

and accepting it for broader? You keep mentioning it's largely considered just for kids. And I've noticed it myself, like, if you enjoyed anime in, like, the early 2000s and stuff like that, like, you were quite a fringe kind of person over here, like, in the West. It seems like everyone's watching anime now and people, it must be something to do with the internet and access seems to be. Some people are waking up to it, I think. Yeah, I think the audience now is more open to animation, at least open to think animation can be for, not just for kids. I think it's for different reasons.

I think a lot of it implies a lot the Japanese animation of course anime there's a dark side in a way of that take is that

I also see a lot of anime fan that are like they only like anime they don't like they don't give a chance to anything else that animate.

It's like, no, no, only Japanese people can do that. It's... Yeah. And the other one, which is a bit close-minded in my opinion, because, of course, there's masterpieces in Japanese animation, and I'm...

I watched a lot of Japanese anime and still watch some. But, yeah, also, I think even in a point of view of the... the American animation industry, I think thanks to the Simpsons, thanks to South Park, thanks to, I don't know what the name of it. Sorry. The guy who's drooling, the scientist drooling. Rick and Morty.

Yeah, Rick and Morty, thank you. Sorry. But thanks to that kind of Bojah Korsman as well, et cetera. That kind of animation for adults also. the audience is into it as growing people. But I think American adult animation or teen and adult animation is more comedy-oriented. There's way less opportunities. So they mix sometimes them with sci-fi like Rick and Morty like Futurama,

but it's comedy-driven. There's still a lot of work to do. Yeah. Because the only adult animation that was, you know, large scale and notable that I can remember in the past, like, Alex, maybe there's something else, but like sausage party where it's like, okay, 3D. I would say invincible. Invincible is the big one. No, we're, yeah, but what about like even a feature? Like, we're talking about specifically only like television, like there's still a stigma.

Yeah, oh, definitely. Where it's relegated to just television and comedy. and now we're starting to get some non-comedy adults animation on television. But in terms of features, like, where are we? It's just like sausage party and that's it. But that's not a serious story in any sense. Also, my opinion is that the American animation industry is not ready to make any movies under a budget of $20 million.

They have their habits about making movies. Their methodology is crazy to me because we have this habits here in France to make movies with a low budget. I mean, it's a low budget regarding Hollywood, of course. They have eight times our budget, you know. We have something like between 5 million and 10 million euros to make a movie in animation. and they are doing them for $80 million, you know, it's like, yeah. But it's also because they are, from what I know, a methodology that is, they don't hesitate to push forward entire sequences.

They finished to redo them in a different way. Because it's like the script is never ended. They can rewrote every. during the production while we can't do that here. We need to stop. Each step has to be validated and we can't move it that much afterward because we secure each step, you know, before going forward. And it's a big difference, I think, also. So when you have a movie that is very expensive, you are more afraid to decrees.

of course. True, true. No, I know exactly what you mean. I've seen, I've been a fly on the wall in many, many different animated projects. There's some that get created in Vancouver and I have friends in the animation industry and it's, well, because I mean also computer animation exists in live action for American productions too. If anyone is looking for a very interesting American animation director. There's one name Dash Shaw. He made two movies.

One is called My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea, and one is called Crypto Zoo. And they're very small team. They take like six. I think he's released whatever, like, seven years, basically, was the time difference in between. And they're both very interesting and very good. But didn't get much attention just because,

perhaps because of the stigma, against, you know, more mature animation. You know, maybe the style's not... It's not Pixar style. It's, you know... Yeah, sure. But I think the line are moving slowly, of course, like everything in our societies, you know?

But, yeah, sure, it's moving anyway. I think it's... The landscape of animation nowadays is way better, in my opinion, than when I started to work. in this field. When I came out from school, animation school, I didn't have much choice, but to work on a TV show, I wouldn't never watch as an audience. I was like, it's not for me, but I have to work. I need to pay my rent and blah, blah, blah. So, yeah. And so when it came to getting Mars Express as a project off the ground, what?

was the process for that? How did that get started and explain that during? You mean, yeah, it's, you know, in the first place, I, even when my producer asked me to do last man, I was a bit reluctant in the beginning because with my co-writer, Laurence Arfati, we tried many times before to create our own show, our own movies, and propose them to many network broadcasters and producers, and every time it was, it's funny, but no. So, okay. And so I was agree on adapting last man in a TV show. my goal was to make myself a name in a way, in the industry at least,

to have some references afterwards to say like, see, I was able to do that. Now let me free to make my own material, you know. So the deal was that. And the same producer afterward, after I finished last man, asked me what I want what do you want to do and I was like I would like to do a sci-fi movie

and he was like okay give me a pitch and so I didn't have any pitch at that moment but he wasn't so much in a hurry so we we worked with Lauren as usual on a pitch in a way on a synopsis to be more honest

and and yeah if you do you want me to elaborate on the first ideas and stuff like that? Just in terms of, I guess, getting the project realized, not necessarily from a creative standpoint,

but from like a logistical standpoint from funding or how much of it was a part of it government funding. We're kind of interested in government funding. We've talked about that conversation a few times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so the fact You have to know that last man The first season was a success

We hoped Everybody on the series hoped for a success But we were not sure At all it would happen So it was great And it helps a lot To make anything else afterwards

So you know Because you can say Ah we did that successful TV show So of course now it's on a different format. It's for a theater. It's a movie, but see,

you can trust us. So it was helpful. Also, you have to know the context of the industry at that point. Just before the year before, also, we launched the production

of Mars Express and we were trying to find funds. Another movie, who had some success in theater as well and was bought by Netflix worldwide and called I Lost My Body I don't know if you heard about that.

I heard about it. I don't remember if I watched it. Yeah, by Jeremy Clapin. That was Oscar nominated, was it? I forgot. I might be confusing it with something else. Maybe. Yeah, it could be.

It could be indeed. Yeah, it was nominated for an Oscar. No, yeah, I watched it and I enjoyed it. Yes. Yeah, sure, because I remember it was doing a tour with the movie in the States and it was for that. Yeah. And that film was so successful because, like you said, it was Oscar nominee. But the how can I call that the administration that helps the like governmental funds in France.

and even some broadcaster that usually helps also to found movies, they didn't help that movie. And they regretted it. They were like, ah, we are so silly. We should have helped that movie. We didn't believe in it. And now see that. It's a success.

And we are not part of it. So next movie, we have to help it a lot. And we were that next movie. Perfect. Yeah. So we had. the best option with the CNC, CNC, which is the governmental cultural help to fund movies. They don't give the entire budget of the movie, of course.

You have a percentage, but we had what we could expect the most. So it was a big help. And the system in France, when you are funding a movie, is when one of the possible founder is okay, usually you unlock every other ones. You know, they are like, oh, they said yes, okay, we are going with them as well. And, you know, it's like a domino effect. So it's like movie 43. Yeah.

And, and yeah, so yeah, we have this in France that is called the CNC. and it's something not many countries have. It's, I know South Korea has a system close to that as well. It's, you know, whenever you go to any theater watching any movies, French films, Korean movies, American movies, there's a small part of the tickets that is took by the CNC, and they used that money to fund the movie of the next year made in France. Okay.

Yeah, it's not a bad system. Yeah, it's a great system because they, and it means that if you have any Avenger movie that is a huge success in France, you know that next year, a French cinema will be fund also thanks to Marvel or right. That's actually great. That's a fantastic idea. Even if the movies are shitty, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's a great system.

And of course, it's a lot, there's a lot of critics about that system, mostly coming from the right wings. Because they hate culture and the hate when, because most of the time, CNC is helping movies that would have more difficulty to be made, you know. And it's, it's, it's, the, the core system is to be, be fair with more fragile movies and more experimental movie, let's say that, that way. You know, if you are doing a big commercial movies, maybe you won't have the help of the CNC,

but you have a lot of private funds, so it's okay. You know, it's to balance the landscape of French cinema and have a more diverse kind of movies. know, in the same time. So, yeah, it's a, we had this help. And then we have all, we had also private funds too. We, it's, it's a, you can have also some, um, findings coming from different region in France. Um, because regions here have, some of them have, um, how to say that?

They need to do some spending in culture. And sometimes it's cinema. The only counterpart of that is that you need to work with the region. So you have to, if you're a live action movie, you have to shoot in that region. It's like doing the commercial of that region in a way. You know, it's a way. You have to work with people living there to make the region. to make the economy of that region working, you know.

And it happens that in France we have now, thanks to that system, a lot of studios that are in different region of France to catch those helps, those fundings. And yeah, we also use that system to make Mars Express. we work with five different studios dispatched in the French territory. And yeah, in a way, that's it about the findings. It's very technical and maybe annoying, I don't know. No, I mean, I find that interesting.

Yeah, that's awesome. It is always important to have some understanding of how things are made from a practical standpoint because it's not just the creative process, but how do you even get the point where someone's willing to give you a shot. Because every film is a collaborative process. You know, there's very few directors that they can do everything by themselves. I kind of wanted to ask, what advice, if any, would you give to people trying to break into animation today in the current landscape? Wow.

It's a question that sometimes people are asking me, and I don't. know, it's difficult. My opinion is I can only base my advice on my own experience. And it's just my own experience. So I think many possibilities are there. But I would say to not be afraid to show what you're doing. Because I don't know. In animation, I think many people are kind of shy, maybe.

at least I was and I was afraid to be mocked for what I was trying to do and I was like doing a lot of I worked on many different shorts or many I wanted to do some pilots for a TV show but I you know I kept them for myself I was like eh people won't like it and they will hate me or you know that kind of paranoid thoughts you can have when you're creating something or someone will steal my ideas and, you know. So fuck that and show to your friends what you're doing. True. Yeah, that is really good advice, actually.

Yeah, yeah. And at least it's because at some point I showed what I was doing to some friends. And it happens that one of my friends was also a composer. He had a band. And at some point he asked me, do you want to do a music video for me? And I was like, why not? And you know, and you don't know where it can go.

And what could happen afterwards. So you need to have some luck, of course. It's not only I don't believe so much in, I do call that. Meritocracy. Yeah, meritocracy. Thank you. But at least do stuff and show what you're doing. And when I say that,

when I say that, just to be clear, don't show it to me. All the people are listening to my advice, don't send me everything you're doing. I mean, to your close friend. Yeah,

I was going to say, I have a three-hour project. I was going to send you right now. I got a really split your great idea. That's it. Yeah, because sometimes I'm saying that and suddenly I have a lot of DM

with people sending me stuff. And I'm like, I don't have time. That advice is really good advice. The landscape being different with the internet now, you'll notice that there are a lot of independent animation projects that are able to come together with people doing voice acting over Discord and like home recording setups and different animations

or different animators working in different places. But just being able to congregate ideas around not being afraid to show your work to the world could mean in this day's context sharing it online in some sense. A lot of things wind up getting support by showing what is your goal? Do you have like a kind of outline or animation concepts?

What do you want to achieve with your voice, your project? And if people see that and they're interested, then you might get collaborators. You might get people who are interested in helping on Kickstarter or in any other way. But that is the first step is to stop being afraid of what other people will think because you have to, if you're creating something, you should be creating it for yourself in the first place. It shouldn't be just a micromanaged, what will people like the most sort of thing,

not to say that that can't be a part of your thought process. spent. Yeah. In the end, there will be necessarily haters and necessarily fans. And so there's no perfect work. Yeah. That maybe everybody would be into it. It's impossible.

This peace doesn't exist. And also, I would say, be ambitious, but also be realistic in a way. Don't go for three hours. project or a TV show about the 10 seasons and stuff like that do it three minutes max synectady in New York

and yeah exactly that was Cadence project it's the never ending the never ending project in terms of what I absolutely love about Mars Express and your other work

so Alex and I watched this for the podcast way back it was on my list, there was something about it that just beckoned me and wanted me to explore it and check it out. One thing that I loved about it is there's a strong sense of intent, there's a strong sense of vision, the decisions that are made creatively are not just visually interesting, but also thematically interesting. Like examples like when you can see the, I forget his name, the officer character who's missing. He died and he's now a hologram robot.

Oh, Carlos. Yeah, you can see through his head, his family in the background as he's walking away or the decision to have the robotic characters computer animated cell shaded and having the human characters 2D, like a lot of really, really purposeful, interesting choices that I love. In terms of your creative process, what was it about this project

that started things in motion where your idea for something that you had to communicate or wanted to express? What did that start out as? Yeah, it's difficult to enter that because it's pretty mixed in the beginning, but what I can say that during the writing, I try to not draw anything before the script is done. Of course, it's not exactly true because the producer

needs to have some drawings to sell the idea to potential founders, etc. But I try to let the visual idea of the movie infusing in my in my head

without almost unconsciously you know like a computer would work behind what is screening I don't know how

how to explain that that makes us and and many ideas came after after the script and for instance the design of

Carlos was a mix of a... Sure, in the script, it's said that his face is a holographic face, but it wasn't sure this hologram would be transparent. And there was no clue about the fact he's like beheaded, you know? When you watch his face, his face is above his body.

There's no connection between the neck and the shoulder. I had this idea by drawing him, and I tried different tests, of course, and I was like, yeah, it's interesting, because it's like his face, like generally, we think the mind, the spirit is in the head, whatever true that Asseltend is.

So the fact his mind is disconnected, disconnected from his body. It was a visual idea that I found interesting when I drew that also. I wanted to pinpoint the fact his body is a standard body, not very expensive because he didn't have enough money

to buy a more sophisticated body. And the fact, in the movie, at some other point, you have holographic element like in the school those holograms are not transparent. They have the technology to do holograms that are not looking like

movies holograms, you know? But the fact his face is transparent means also the technology is lower, is not as great as it could be. And so it's a

take. It's a way to to tell the guy is a poor guy. Yeah. There's tons communicated in this film. Tons of environmental storytelling.

Yeah. And also, it's a mix of you, thank you to pinpoint that, but for me, NID convinced me

when it's visually interesting, but also when it says something thematically. And the fact his face is transparent.

Again, is like a ghost. And he's like a ghost haunting Alin, his partner. And the fact, because she doesn't really know if she has to consider him dead or alive. And is he really his friend from before or is it just an emulator of his friend? So the fact is transparent like a ghost, like a, yeah, like a spirit.

it like a phantom. It's like a haunting a haunting living idea following Alin everywhere. So it's, yeah, all those ideas were condensed in that design. And yeah, beautiful. It's that way I ended up on this. So when it came to like fleshing out the world of Mars Express, I'm just finding this fascinating, the whole idea of you not doing any drawing and it keeping it to the written word.

what was that process of translating that script into the world building? Because that's one of the things I love about the film. It's so concise in under 90 minutes, but it feels like this really fleshed out, lived in world and all of this storytelling that's going on in the background that you're not lingering on,

but it like informs the characters and the world and everything that's going for. What was that all about? Like, how did that come together? Yeah, it's, thank you to say that. But in a way, it's one of my problem with that movie, but it's a general problem in the French animation industry,

is that we are low budget, like I told you. And because of that, we have to be... We have to flesh out everything that is useless to the story. So it's very concise and maybe two-tenths at some point. I would like... At a necessity, yeah. You would like it longer, you say? if given unlimited budget.

Yeah, probably I wouldn't have make a two hours length movie, of course, but I think the movie could be better with five more minutes. Just five more minutes. Nothing more. But I think there's missing now because the movie has been released some years ago, I can finally talk about the movie for real. I'm not in a promotional moment. No.

And also now I have more perspective about the movie. I have a different angle. Even if I'm the worst audience for that movie, I know this movie way too much. I saw it in every... Yeah, you'll be the harshest critic, for sure. Yeah. But yeah, I think maybe some moment

where nothing much happens, but the audience have the time to breathe out and to think about what they witnessed just before and just for the audience to record every information because in its final form, the movie is maybe a bit too much like running after information after once, and maybe it's too much. I don't know.

Some people really like this. impression so I don't know yeah yeah that's one of the things I actually love about the movie is that a sense of urgency that the runtime gives it and how efficient it is and we often talk about it on this show the idea of the way limitations can sometimes kind of force you to be concise and I feel like this is a case where you might feel this now but I don't know I think it comes together beautifully as far as like a plot structure there's like no fat on there yeah I would find it very interesting to have another five minutes for sure.

But yeah, it works great as it is either way. The worst part is I made some sequences in Storyboard that has been deleted from the final version of the film. I mean, those sequences are only existing as a storyboard piece. You know, they didn't have been animated. The background are still black and white and stuff. So we couldn't add them just right away for a director's cut. We would have to make them. So this will never happen, you know.

Except if the movie becomes a cult classic at some point, but I think it's not possible. Maybe release like an animatic if there's another physical version or something. Yeah, but it would mean to, to read it anyway no just like as a featureette not in the

not in the film but just like as a special feature I meant ah yeah yeah I don't remember in the Blu-ray edition we have a lot of extras and

I don't know if you said bonus or extras for DVD either way both for example we have a lot of those in the the French Blu-ray edition. Oh, okay.

I'm not sure there's the special sequence, deleted sequences. I should check my copy, actually. It's like right behind me. I'll just grab it. Hold on. I'm curious what some of your, like, cinematic influences, even beyond animation for Mars Express were, you know, I feel like, especially the ending,

it's so fatalistic and brutal. I loved how it ended so much, reminded me of Chinatown. In a way, just the feeling it gave me. So what were some of your influences? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you had the good intuition. Indeed, Chinatown was an inspiration, of course, but also the film noir in general, you know,

in that kind of movie, there's always at least some spleen element to the mood. But sometimes it's really tragic at the end. and many times the main character is dying and stuff like that. But also we had, I guess you watched that movie already, To Live and Die in LA was a reference for us by William Friedkin. And yeah, I don't know if I have to say why, because it would be a major spoiler for the audience who never watched it. But yeah, that movie was also an influence.

But, yeah, like I said, we didn't have that much consciously, I mean, sci-fi references in our head. Sometimes with Laurent while writing, we were quoting some movies, of course, or some books. But we mostly consciously worked on film noir kind of. of movie, private eye movies and stuff like that. You know, also, the major problem I will have right now is to remember the English title instead of the French title of those movies. But for instance, I also had, like I said, Chinatown, the Long Goodbye by Robert Altman, Kiss Me Deadly, I guess.

It's the name in English. But also all those, you know, conspiracy movies from the 70s, early 80s, you know, like the Barrax View, three days of the Condor. The Conversation by Francis Ford Coppola, I think it's the name. Yes, conversation. Yeah. There's even a quote of the conversation in a reference, not a quote, of the conversation in Mars Express.

The first shot of the conversation is a reference for a specific scene in Mars Express. It's the same kind of point of view and a long shot above a square in the city and people talking and you are spying them. You're in the point of view of spies hearing them from far away. and it's yeah it has been inspired by that first shot in the conversation and yeah that kind of movies were consciously are inspirations yeah awesome I think we'll have to move on to the film recommendation discussion pretty soon but Alex or Jake did you have any other I do have one more major one I kind of want to touch on it's kind of back unfortunately more to the like business

side of what's with the physical and streaming distribution of Mars Express? Because in the UK, it's quite a difficult film to kind of get your hands on. And I'm sure there are a lot of hungry people that would love to access it. But just don't have it. And why? Yeah. It's a great question because you'll see with the UK, I don't know if the movie came out or not yet. I made

I was I was there for a premiere but it was last year I think and I thought the movie would came out soon afterwards but it seems it didn't

it hasn't been released yet and I received a message recently from a friend of a friend who's working at the cultural center of I don't know what in London asking me me, oh, I saw your movie will be released and could we do an event together?

Would you agree to come and do something? And I was like, yeah, sure, but I think the movie has been released yet and I don't understand. And it seems, yeah, the movie hasn't been released yet. But the problem I have is that whenever I ask my international seller for the movie that is selling the movie to many different distributors around the world about this specific case, they never answered me, so I don't know. I have no clue. I have no clue about that.

Yeah, that's the same problem with Nirvana, the band of the show. Yeah, sorry, it's weird because you made a film. A lot of people are into watching it. And so, and today nowadays, it's even easier to contact someone directly and ask him some question. But, okay, I'm the author of that movie, co-author, because I'm not alone. And I directed it and blah, blah, blah. But sometimes I have no idea. Yeah.

It's out of your hands. It's not exactly. Yeah, it's out of my league, of my hands of everything. and about that I don't know but yeah I will try to know more about that I would like to have I don't know

some sums up of every release all over the world because the movie we were really lucky many countries both the movie distributed it but I don't have the complete list of it and sometimes

I'm discovering oh it's out in Mexico. I didn't know. But nobody told me before some random person, gentle person, send me a picture on Instagram like, oh, I saw your movie yesterday. I don't know who you are, but thank you. I didn't know it was there. So it's weird. It's weird. But yeah. So why is it difficult? Just download it. I don't know. That's the industry. That's the industry. Yeah, there is industry. Yeah, it's just a constant frustration. a lot. It happens to a lot of movies, especially in the UK for some reason. Yeah, I don't know what a problem is. Yeah. Yeah, you guys like, everybody was thinking that Nirvana the man, the show of the movie would get like a UK release and then just like nothing. You know, it was frustrating. It's so frustrating because they're, I know there are hungry audiences out there

that would eat this stuff up, but they just can't get it. And for no reason, like for no reason. I should be able to, yeah, open Apple TV and Chuck Miles Express on whenever. I just can't have to import it. I guess there's some strategy, you know, like when you're a distributor, you know that you have a sci-fi movie, an indie sci-fi movie in animation, French one, you know. It's not the habit of the audience. French cinema is not really known for sci-fi and animation. It's a bit weird in a way.

So you have to be strategic and find a way to... you know, release the movie, not in the same time as June, for instance. I don't know, you know, so you have to schedule everything. So, I don't know. If anybody in North America, I think in the U.S. and Canada, is looking to watch Mars Express. I believe it's on Crunchy Roll if you're looking for a streaming option. See, I didn't know.

Yeah, no, it's on Crunchy Roll last time I checked. Otherwise, I think, yeah. Amazon, you can rent it on Prime Video or perhaps buy it on iTunes or buy the Blu-ray. But there are options in U.S. and Canada, as far as I know. That was a great conversation, and I could have that conversation forever. Yeah, I could keep going and going down. We got to, for the sake of time, we got to get to the movie recommendation. So usually when we start doing the movie recommendation discussion, the person who recommended

it just gives a little blurb and introduces the movie and then we start talking about it. So I forgot to tell you before we started recording. But if you wanted to say, here's the movie. A blurb is a short summary of synopsis, I guess. Everybody hates to do that, right? Like to pitch a movie, it's so difficult. Well, whatever you can say as little or as much as you want about it, just to let people know what it is we're talking about.

if they for some reason didn't watch it. I can try to, to sums up the movie if you want, but... Perfect. It doesn't have to be the whole thing. What is it? Just what is the movie?

Okay, what movie is it? Yes. It's body double by Brian De Palma. It's from 1984. And it's about a guy, Jake Scully, I think. He's an actor. He's playing a vampire

in a B-movies, horror B-movies, you know. And because he's suddenly afraid by he's claustrophobic. You know, you learn that really quickly. He's claustrophobic in his

situation of he's buried, you know, faking buried in a set of a vampire movie. And so it's fired. Yeah, he's fired because he's not a good vampire. So he's fired and

he's coming back home and he realized his girlfriend is cheating on him. So cheating, maybe I should say cheating and not cheating because my French story. Yeah, I understand. Anyway, so he's alone and he doesn't have any flat anymore because the flat was his girlfriend flat. And so he's a loser. More likely.

But he meets a guy, another actor, during an acting session that have maybe something for him in his situation, at least for five weeks. He has a job to do in a different city, and he is borrowing, keeping care of an incredible apartment in Hollywood. And he's like, I can give it to you during five weeks, live there, try your way to jump from that difficult situation. in and okay, that's it, bye-bye.

And the guy is taking that apartment, but realizing he has also a telescope that is pointing at a neighbor's house close by, but on the other side of the valley. Yeah, with every day, at the same time every day, a woman, a beautiful woman, he can't really see her face, but she's, then. and masturbating, oh yeah, every day. So he's like intrigued, of course, by that spectacle. And he's watching that every day, of course, because he's kind of a peeping tom.

Yeah. But really soon after that, and it will be the end of that blurb. Yes. You realize there's also. there's also other people around that woman and they are a bit weird, a bit menacing. So he's like, oh my God, what's happening to that poor woman? And so he starts to follow her, maybe to help her, but maybe he's falling in love with her despite the fact it doesn't know her at all.

And everything becomes a bit foggy, blurry. and the threading. Oh, yeah, it's a reader. A mystery. Nice. All right, what did we all think of it? Who wants to start? Alex?

Sure. Yeah, this was cool. This was interesting and weird. It's interesting. First word. Okay. Yeah. Because we did blowout.

Quite a few episodes ago now, and I loved that too. And in between that, I checked out, Fantome of the Paradise. from De Palma. I'm just growing a more and more appreciation for the technical side of his filmmaking. And I really love the twist and turns of this movie, but at its core, what it's saying kind of about that contrast of the film industry

with the adult film industry of the 80s and kind of bringing up these parallels of the sleeves and the exploitation. And that's what was really speaking to me about the movie outside of the, you know, the Hitchcock voyeurism angle and the split dioptist shots and everything. Yeah, about you guys.

Well, I hadn't seen it before. And so it was kind of, and I watched it literally last night. And it was definitely a narratively, very odd and kind of silly. I loved watching this kind of pathetic guy continuing to justify why he's like following around. and just having this weird little adventure that he didn't really need to have, but he was kind of being, he felt as though he needed to, and that was the important part. It was the result of him being unemployed and freshly, I guess,

in a broken up relationship, which, by the way, the shot of him discovering her cheating on him was so funny. loved how her reaction was like exasperated sigh. She's like, yeah. Like she, she, she,

she, this is not the typical like, ah, ooh, get out of like, like, you know, yeah,

yeah, there was no, she's really like, well, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, she wasn't, probably wasn't even disappointed that she got caught,

you know, it was like, well, I guess we're going through this. Um, yeah, wow, as the,

as the, as the film went on, I kind of There's this level Where I'm trying to interpret exactly how much of this era of the Palma films Is Like silly to the degree where it's so ironic Like it's obviously there's intent with camp

It's a very campy film But I'm wondering how much of it I'm supposed to be kind of like laughing Or how much of it I'm supposed to be taking seriously Either way Very enjoyable because I love laughing with it anyway. But some of the sequences with the cholestrophobia, like when he's in the tunnel,

I found that very, very amusing, especially the end result of it, the woman he was pursuing, just deciding to go back the same way. Like, I'm out of here, like knowing he can't follow her. That was funny. Yeah, Jake, so you've seen this before.

What's your experience with it? Oh, yeah. So I've seen this before, and I really enjoyed it the first time, but I feel like watching it again a second time. I watched this right after watching Mars Express last night. And a weird double feature. No, no, there's a logic there. There's an internal logic there. I love body double, and I think it's also one of the most bat-shit crazy movies ever made.

Like, it is, I think you guys are underselling how weird this place. movie is. I didn't want to get into spoilers at the end. The end is where it gets like really, really weird for me. It just becomes a music video. It's like it's so like I think Adam you're getting to the point really well in terms of like the camp and seriousness and how it kind of is on the line there and teasing you. It's like that's the real mystery.

Like I'm the investigator. Exactly. How serious is this? And I feel like this is De Palma's, I don't know, maybe his most like. self-aware and like self-reflexive and meta movie, you know, it's about filmmaking. It's about watching, obviously, but it has all these themes and all these obsessions that are just mixed into a blender. It's, you know, Hitchcock, but porno, you know, it's so bizarre and weird and weirdly plotted as well. So, like, I just find it so utterly fascinating. Like, scene to scene,

it is like visually beautiful and mesmerizing. Like there's like a 10 minute sequence of him just following her. And it's like it's so captivating how it's done. And there are parts that are just so bizarre and borderline terrible that I just, I have so much love and respect for what it is. And I feel like I return to it in the way I return to like a David Lynch movie that kind of eludes me, you know, that's like there's so. there's something in there that I just can't quite grasp.

I think that's the poetry of the movie. That's what's like so compelling. It is something unnameable that I keep returning to because it's such a, such an interesting film. You want to know more about it. And hilarious. And hilarious. hilarious that this is what he followed Scarface with too.

Oh my God. It's so funny. It's hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. What is your experience with this film, Jeremy? How many times have you seen it? And what exactly do you love about it?

I didn't count how many times I watched that movie. But let's say around 10 times. But not yesterday, not the 10 times yesterday. But yeah, I watched that movie years ago, like 10 years ago. And maybe more, you know, time passes so fast. But no, the first time I saw it, I remember I was shocked because I found the movie really crazy, you know, like, how can you do that? Yeah, you cannot predict it. Against the rules.

The movie is too much. And it's precisely why I like this movie. It's the thin line between the seriousness and way too much situation and not believable situation. I was re-watching it this morning and yesterday because I know the movie a lot, but I wanted a fresh memories too. And I was like, when you're thinking about the plan of the main V-lane, the, what you have in mind, it's unbelievable. It's too fragile.

It doesn't work. It doesn't work at all because it needs to know that the guy will be there with his car at this moment. It has to be. And I love the fact it's not possible and it's unbelievable. Because the movie is about illusion mostly and about the fact you're choosing to believe the illusion. In fact, in my opinion, Jake Scurley is like, no, it's not possible, but he wants to believe in it. And that's why the fact the plan is so clunky, so impossible. make the movie even better in a meta way, you know, because as an audience, we are like Jake

Scully, we want to believe in the, in the illusion of a movie. True. So to me, the movie works because precisely it doesn't work. You know, it's weird, but I think it's the movie twist my brain for that. You know, I'm like, oh, it's so genius to do that because it's so risky to do that. And, you know, the main title appears. everything in the beginning of the movie is so clever in the staging. I mean, you start on a fake sunrise or sunset, maybe sunset because it's a vampire who is rising.

So, yeah, it's a sunset. And everything is fake all the time. All shots in the beginning are like to say everything you will see is fake. And it's a glimpse on the whole themes of the movie. The title, Body Double, is the... It's the reveal of the main plot. It's a body double. The solution is in the title.

And the title appears on a landscape, and you realize that landscape is a fake landscape painted on a cardboard for cinema, you know, for studios. So the cardboard is a big one, you know, like a made painting, some sort of a made painting. And there are two workers of the studio are bringing out the painting. And the main character who you saw him as a vampire before is now natural. And he's coming out of that fake background. So it's like the guy live in the illusion, live in the fakeness of Hollywood, of Los Angeles, of the movies in general. You know, the movie is thematically crazy.

In my opinion. So that's why I love so much that movie. And also, yeah, the fact is using male gaze a lot in the movie. It's like a great way to use male gaze because the guy, I don't know. At what point the Palma is conscious about this. I'm not sure because the principle of male gaze is something pretty recent, at least in the mainstream. So I guess he was more into, oh, it's so cool to be able to shoot movie women, naked women and stuff like that. But I'm pretty sure he could feel that it's easy to trick a guy with that kind of shots.

So I'm pretty sure he was aware about that. And I think it's a take on male gaze unconsciously, but. it is in a way. That's very fascinating. Oh yeah, we should say full spoilers for everybody listening because I want to get into the nitty gritty. I want to get into the details of the ending

because that's where I was like, you know, I had a mixed kind of feeling the entire time where I was enjoying it, but also kind of like skeptical. But as things were coming together near the ending, I was like, okay, this is just so unique and different that I love this no matter what. That's the exact same experience, yeah. There was a chunk in the middle where I wasn't sure if I was really vibing with it,

but yeah, the exact same thing happened. Yeah, the odd pacing shift, right? Yeah, the pacing and kind of like the direction of the story, like the plotting, just like, oh, we're going over here now, I'm going to do this. But somehow it comes back together and it reincorporates into itself. And yeah, it's just so like dreamlike and kind of manufactured weird. Yeah, yeah. That whole octagonal building.

It was like starting to turn into Jacob's ladder a little bit. It was like, whoa. The setting is just so good for that. You know, there's some theory about the fact the whole adventure is just a mental adventure, you know, like everything is in his head. It's like an acting exercise. Yeah, in order to get over his claustrophobia. I thought that's what they were going to do towards the end. For Barian de Palma, it's not.

real. Everything is happening for real. So what is mental projection is of course one of the sequence at the end, of course, because you have this

kind of flash forward, flashback with the beginning of the movie. The structure of the movie is twisting there. It's so cool, in my opinion. But yeah, this moment is mental, of course. there are some for some people in the audience they think they have this interpretation of the

whole movie is like a dreamy but it's it's because of the mood of the film it's so dreamy yeah yeah the soundtrack choices were actually really interesting too i love the score especially the the jarring tonal shift in the score when it uh started the chase scene uh yeah like just a very very fascinating uh uh tonal shift in a way that felt very very abrupt and very sudden but I was still into it I was still there for it and yet the telescope part of the soundtrack

I listen to that all the time after watching this movie it's like some of the best movie music and it's so it's almost transcendent and like just gorgeous the way and he's just like watching this woman do us strip tease but the music is like he's seeing the face of God you know, it's so incredible and moving. And it's just like, why am I moved at this like cheesy, like. Yeah, really weird emotional experience.

It's like there's a juxtaposition almost. Exactly. Yeah. But it's the compliments. Yeah, yeah. The music is by Pino Donagio, who made a lot of soundtracks for Brian De Palma. He made already the Carrie OST. He made blowout.

Nice. which one, many of them, in fact. But he worked also on Don't Look Now or The Howling by Joe Dante. So yeah, it's an Italian composer, De Palma. Is this your favorite, is this your favorite De Palma film? I don't know. Maybe not. I don't know.

It's one of my favorite. But it's difficult to make a list with, with the first one, a second one. I love blowout, but I was like, yeah, blowout is maybe more famous. I think body double is more hidden gems in his filmography than, you know, Phantom of the Paradise is very known and Carrie, the untouchables, or even Mission Impossible, I think,

is well-known way more. even if maybe for the audience it's more a Tom Cruise movie and of course you told about Scarface yeah maybe ultimately it's maybe this one who's the most famous one and the most appreciating one

the body double I think needs more praise yeah that's why I show this one because De Palma is one of my favorite director that's why I thought about one of his films and whenever I'm thinking about

I'm about to work on the visual of my next project and more likely on the staging. Always, the Palma is there in my mind with some other, but he's part of the guy I'm thinking about.

What is it about his visual language that you're drawn to? What I like is the fact he seems to have no fear. to be. Yeah, it's also it's gorgeous in my opinion. The camera movement are so fascinating. So, you know, I don't know, they are like pulling me inside the movie. I don't know. When he's just doing a pan with the camera or following someone and the choreography in a body is so great when the first shot, inside the mall, you know. It's a camera that follows the woman and then turn around a booth,

a telephone booth, and you have the, let's call him the Indian guy, running the other way around. But the camera continues and cross the guy, find back the woman who were behind the phone booth, but now you can see her. And it's at that moment. the main character is coming in the from the other direction. You know, there's all those. It's crazy blocking.

There's so many good ones to pick from. Yeah, the choreography is crazy. Yeah. And everything is so fluid and so clear, you know, but also so complex when you think about the, yeah. And it's, there's so much ambition there. I don't know. And I think it's,

the staging is very clever. It's very almost intellectual for all the themes I was talking about that are inside those camera movement, those visuals. But also, all this is also mixed with some vulgar stuff. And I love that. That mix of intelligent stuff and supposedly vulgarity or, you know, cheap. stuff and like yeah the guy is working in in a horror B movies and he will uh visit the the porn world and stuff like that it's it's very it's every single Hollywood tries to hide you know but the movie go there completely and with a lot of luxury in the in the in the in the way everything

is made you know and uh yeah i i really love that great location scouting too I love the The shot of when he's kind of walking down, you see that residence that's built into the side of the hill. Yeah. Cameras like tilting downward. It's just such a beautiful... It's a great Hollywood movie. It's a great L.A. movie. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, the whole setting of that octagon building. The movie didn't work in the US when it was released. He worked more in Europe, especially in France, from what I read. And it's interesting to... to read, because I have a book about Brian de Palma's interview about all his career and stuff

and so I reread the chapters about Body Double before coming here tonight. Yeah, it's funny because you were talking about some scene in the tunnel and

how it ends with a really long circle circular camera movement around the guy and the girl, and it's infinite, and it's like a dream for the guy. And De Palma said that he tries this, but whenever the movie was released,

he was disappointed that people were laughing in the cinema during that scene. And he wanted this scene to be kind of serious. And I must say that I never laugh on that scene. I was really... caught by that scene. I think it's really great, but I understand why people can laugh about that scene. And the reason is, he says that I try to do something romantic, but the old context can't be romantic.

It's impossible. When you think about it, it's not because the guy is deranged. It's weird. Yeah. The guy is deranged and so on. So it's too much. But I like the fact we are into the head of Jake Scully is deranged, but we're with him. And I don't know.

I feel like I can understand even if it's completely crazy, I'm okay with that. Yeah, it's a deranged film in a way. Yeah, yeah. And the fact it's, and like I said, the fact it's not possible and it's unbelievable, make it even more, I don't know, strong to the visuals and the fact it's too much. I'm like, wow, it's so great. Let's go. Gives it that extra layer.

More, more. I love that. You know, it seems like De Palma also is commenting on the audience in the sense that so much of Jake Scully, I wonder if James Cameron took the name for it. Yeah, no, I was thinking of it. Jake Sully, Jesus, I just realized. Sully or Scully? I don't know.

It's solely an avatar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, but in Body Double, it's Scully, indeed. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I wonder, because it feels like De Palma is saying, like, so much of what Jake Scully is doing is he's following her. He's clearly, like, sexually, like, a creep, and he's, like, grabbing her underwear like trash and all these things.

But it's like he's doing it to protect her from this other guy. No, I wasn't following you. I was following the other guy who's following you, you know? And that is watching a movie like Body Double. You know, it's like, I'm not a creep. I wouldn't do these things, but I want to watch the creep do those things. That's the appeal of so many of his movies, you know. It's almost like a Hanukkah.

But clearly, the movie is, the movie is talking about claustrophobia, but on a psychoanalyst perspective, I think the guy is just, is mostly sexually important, in fact. I think it's about that. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, that would explain. why the weapon was like a drill. Yes. I think that's my favorite scene.

Giant penis. It's very phallic. Yeah, exactly, exactly. If you're thinking about it from a logical perspective of like someone trying to get away with a crime, like, I don't know, having a murder weapon that you need to be plugged in kind of provides a couple challenges. But from a thematic perspective, you know, like... And kind of comedy.

Like, when it's pulling on the cable. Oh, it doesn't work unless he has to be plugged in. have it plugged in and you know like it's yeah like it's he's kind of struggling with it and then penetrating and yeah wow like there there is a lot there actually and and jake literally can't get off until he is in the fantasy until he's in the porn world yeah exactly moment but it's all fantasy it's never like a really thing wow what about when the detective is talking about that murder after the case and he says Gloria got nailed like it is a B movie horror movie it's like such a disturbing way of describing what just happened.

Oh my gosh, yeah. That detective was so unsettling. He's such an asshole. Oh, yeah. And he just, he lied basically to him to try and make him believe, like, he was, he was the suspect. And then at the very end was like, ah, actually, no, the two witnesses corroborated that same information, but we still think it's your fault.

So you should feel bad about it. Yeah, it's easier. It's easier. I want to know what happened to those two joggers. How did you guys feel about the narrative turn when after Glory is murdered and then he starts watching the porn and he's seeing Melanie Griffith and stuff? It was so odd. Yeah, what is he doing? It's like, wait, and then he's in the porn and it's in the street.

Oh, yeah. Because it's deep into the movie when it shifts too, right? It's like past the hour point. It was like halfway. Where it goes into the like porno world. But I don't know. When then the Frankie goes to Hollywood scene begins and it's like playing that song and my favorite shot in the movie is actually in that scene. with the mirror shot showing the crew when it moves.

Was that split diopter or no? The word is like behind the door and, oh, that's a different mirror shot you're talking about. Oh, right, right. I'm talking about the one way it shows the crew actually shooting that shot. I was thinking a bit different way. I thought that was cool and clever. And going back to that kind of weird confidence and just craziness are willing to have something like that in there and focus on that.

But it is, yeah, all just loop back round to this kind of, manufactured idea that it's going for. No, yeah, there's, there's, there's a lot to pick up on from this that, and I'm glad to hear your perspectives, Jake and Jeremy, from people, you've both watched it more than once, because there is, there is more to this than I initially interpreted on a first watch. I think another huge element is Craig Watson as the leading role. It's like he is, it's either you, you either get along with what he's doing or it just bounces. I feel like that's the main thing that I was turned off from when I first watched the movie

was like, what is this guy's deal? What is his performance? He's Bill Maher. He doesn't like, I've wrote the same thing, though. And he's so unlike a Hitchcock hero would be different. James Stewart is not, you know, like that in vertigo, you know. But he's such a weasily kind of like weak character who, yeah, I think. Jeremy, like you're saying, he's impotent

in this film and that's not normal for a Hollywood American film, you know. Yeah. I guess it's you know, Body Double is more likely known to be one of

the latest Ichcockian movie from Brian de Palma. After this movie, it will be less obvious on his movies that is referring to Hichcock. It's not anymore. So it's a farewell.

That movie is a farewell way to, it's a way to say bye-bye to Hitchcock from the Palmas. So he's putting everything there. And like you said before, I don't remember who said that, but that person was right. It's made also in a self-aware way, you know, like some cynicism. maybe not not sonisicism but some irony also in a way it's uh and um i think the main character is indeed uh the mix of two james steward figure in uh in hitchcock movies it's uh of course the the main character in vertigo but also the main character in the rear window yeah and uh in real window is a wire uh with um binoculars and um

He's on a wheelchair, so he can't move. He's stuck on his own apartment. In this movie, it's like James Stewart had to go out from his wheelchair and be in action, you know. It's, yeah, and it's, it's, it's, it's his motive from the, for the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the song in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. It's about that. So, so.

when you want to come. The song thematically is about the main character. And it's generally the figure of a character that is stuck and just watching some action out of his life is usually a metaphor of the audience. And at least Hitchcock were about that in Rear Window. He was like, it's a character who is watching another movie and it's a, the reference for the audience, you know, like it's a metaphor of the audience.

And it's funny because to me, in Avatar, Jake Sully is also a figure of the audience in a wheelchair just like James Stewart. So the fact is Jake Sully and Jack Scully. I think there's some connection there.

I think so. You're right. James. You know, I'm actually, there's some things that are kind of starting to click for me, especially when mentioning that song choice as well. And you mentioned the erectile dysfunction. I think it might be less about erectile dysfunction,

but general performance anxiety in a sexual context because then the parallel between performance anxiety in literal performance from his acting and the anxiety of the claustrophobia, that attaches itself into the idea, of getting performance anxiety in a sexual context. And I mean that, you know, when he was doing the makeout in the tunnel scene and that got interrupted and she went back through the tunnel, like that is another direct anxiety of the claustrophobia, literally interrupting basically a sexual context, preventing him from continuing to pursue her. So, yeah, things are starting to click.

And like literally the song lyrics, relax, don't do it when you want to come. It's like such a, I don't. Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, okay, great. Yeah, things are starting to click. This is great. That's so funny. I think you could also read some into like queer subtext in this film.

If you want to take that angle with it too, you know, there's a lot to be read into Jake Schully's character and the way he interacts, especially with Melanie Griffith and the end of the film, you know, like at the climax of the film, they don't, you know, come together or anything. Like, it's so bizarre. And I forgot how strange it is, how right when the bad guy is pushed into the reservoir or whatever, right after that, she's, he's still, like, explaining the plot to her. Like, there's no romantic kiss. Like, literally the only time he has any kind of, like, sexual, well, besides, like, the big kiss that he has early on in the film, but that feels like a fantasy, too with the way, like the rear projection and all that.

But, you know, he has this moment with her and she's still in the grave. Like, no, like, don't touch me. Get away from me. Like, what? It's so strange. And then, yeah, it really doesn't end there because then you have the credits where he's it's the whole body double thing. And he's like, you know, at a remove from it in a very strange way. Like, I don't know, it's just such a fascinating way to end the movie where he's still, like,

explaining the plot of the movie. right after a death. I don't know. What did you guys think of the ending? It was fascinating. It was fascinating. I love how it kept going. It wasn't just like one single moment of like twist or reveal or recontextualizing.

It was like, oh, no, we're going to continue this into the end credits. We're going to go even farther with it. That was a good choice. Oh, yeah. And just the, I love when the ending of a film is more. laid back, but in a way that kind of almost conflicts with the previous tones of the film, where you're just kind of watching things settle

and left to absorb a scene like the director moving in the stick for his hand to stay consistent when they put in the body double. Like just watching that process after everything else and just in that context was just very satisfying. and meaningful. And her performance too, the actual body double that comes in. Yeah. My breasts are tender because I'm on my period and it's like the least sexual way to present like something that is on his face sexual. But going back to that kind of ending and the

twists and reveals, how do we feel about the whole mask being ripped off thing? Like the central mystery of it is there like a self-awareness to that side of it? Because the first time I saw that character that Greg Henry plays that they call the Indian. Yeah. Is, like, you're supposed to notice that it's him instantly? So I was like, that's Greg Henry. Like, right away, there's no surprise element to that to me, but still found it kind of, like, funny and weird when he's, like, tearing his face off.

And I love the shot from it inside the, where he's buried and he's looking at. Oh, yes. And he's like, the pieces of the mask are coming off, and it's mimicking that tunnel shot from earlier with the white light, kind of a great execution of that. But how do you feel about that, that? that core mystery element with that Greg Henry character. Oh, how do I feel about it? How do all of us feel about it?

Well, like, did you, were you tricked by that? That's like a first time watcher or like? Look, I saw the, I saw the mask and immediately noticed it was a mask. And I was like, this looks like somebody, but I just couldn't put my figure on it. But it's one of those things where it's like any movie with a mystery, I'm always expecting there to be layers upon layers of misdirect. So oftentimes I don't really try to call it if it's like I don't go, oh, it's them or whatever. I don't know. It depends on the movie.

But I was just along for the ride in a way that I wasn't thinking too hard about who it was. I knew that the film would get there eventually. But to me, the fact right away when you see that mysterious guy, mincing guy, you think like, it's a prosthetic. You see it. And I don't know. To me, it's like the palmer we're saying, yeah, who cares? Yeah, we know. We know it's always disappointing.

So believe me, let's go for a ride. And, you know, it's the fact the main character believes it, but not you. I think it's one of the secret ingredient in that movie. The fact it's so good, in my opinion, at least. I won't try to convince everybody. Because I think it's not necessarily not a movie for everybody. But the fact it's so fake, make it even greater to me. Yeah.

Because the movie is about fake, illusion, the truth, etc. All those elements like the fact movies are just illusions and we made a pact altogether to believe in this. You know, I don't know how you call that in English, but there's a formula to say the suspension of disbelief, something like that. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So the movie is about that to me. So the fact it's so visible, it's, to me, it's a risk, of course, because many people will say like, oh, it's fake.

But to me, yeah, that's the point. To me, it's the point. That's awesome. Because, yeah, that also does work from the B movie angle, too. Yeah. It is like setting the scene and the opening it. Yeah. But it is, I guess it's just from it, this is the first time I've seen this, just watching it unfold and it's so strange.

Yeah. You just don't know what to expect. I was like, does it want me to care about this part of the mystery? Or does it want me to love? Does it want me to be scared right now? It's very interesting that way. I'm excited to watch it again with that context, thinking of it in that way.

Yeah, I feel like there's a refreshing amount of faith that De Palma puts in the audience to kind of parse tonally what's happening and also to understand, like, the tropes and just go, okay, just go along with this for a minute. You know, I'm doing something else over here that you'll notice later, but just go with me on this. And I really like that attitude.

True. And the fact maybe some elements can look like fake and badly made, even if it's not badly made,

but you can see there's a trick there. Doesn't affect the fact that the staging is still brilliant and you have to watch this.

I mean, that sequence in the hole, in the grave, when the grave is more and more gigantic and the sky is white. Everything is fake there also. You know, you know it's made in studio and stuff. So to me, it's another clue that everything is too much

and is made on purpose to look like fake. Maybe you think you're thinking. the fake adjective is way too much if I was speaking French. Maybe I tried to use other words. But anyway, but yeah, to me it's intended. What a fantastic discussion. Thank you so much for recommending this. Is there anything that anybody else wanted to say about the movie

before we get to the rating and questions? I think it's fun for the whole family, watch it. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Great family film. No, that was awesome. And very much looking forward to seeing this one again, because that was a very eye-opening discussion.

And I'm always glad to see things under a new context. So I'm giving this one for now a high 7 out of 10. I expect I'll probably increase the rating on my second watch. and then also Jeremy you don't have to give a rating if you don't have one if you don't. Yeah.

You know, I'm on Letterboxed and since few months I decided to stop rating movies. Just do the like or not like? I don't give any stars to any movies. It's probably healthy. Fair enough. Yeah.

Fair enough. Yeah. I'm right there with you, Adam. Like a high three and a half star. Loved all the filmmaking here. You're just not going to see anything like this. It feels so unique and weird and strange. I really loved that Melanie Griffith character

when that eventually comes into the movie. Yeah, this was really different. Can't wait to see it again after that discussion, too. Yeah, I mean, nine out of ten for me, it's, I don't know if it's my favorite De Palma, but it's up there, yeah. Wow, that's a pretty, nine out of ten, not even sure if it's your favorite.

Pretty good, yeah. De Palma's got a good, I mean, I need to watch. I haven't even seen that many De Palma movies, but there's still some blind spots I need to cover. Like Phantom of the Paradise, I need to watch that. Oh, you never watched it yet? No, I haven't watched it yet.

And I have Carlito's Way on Blu-ray. I need to watch that still. So I'm excited. I'm spacing. You're all lucky man. Yeah. Well, we could just keep recommending De Palma movies and call it De Palma cast.

Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah, just change the name on the podcast. All right, time for questions. Cool. Let's do some questions then from the Saldoncast community. Head over to the suggestion thread over on the subreddit. If you're going to leave questions for future episodes. But for now, let's do this one from Just Cause of, you can get us going here, to Jeremy.

How does music influence your animation process on Mars Express? Did you and your team storyboard with specific tracks in mind? A few of the action scenes felt like elevated music videos complementary. I love the score in Mars Express, by the way. What was that process like? Did you have it already completed or how did that work? Well, first of all, thank you. But about the music, when we worked with Fred Avril and Philippe Montailles,

the main composers of the soundtrack of Last Man and Mars Express, we worked with temp tracks, you know, on Last Man. And I realized quickly that they didn't really enjoy temp tracks because the and I realized no, there's no composer, music composer that like that. Because the, and I understand completely why, the director is way too much into the temp tracks at some point. He made this, he's editing around those. tracks and they influenced way too much the, well, the inspiration of the music composer and they have difficulties to propose different possibilities to the director who's now way

too much into his temporary choices. So to avoid that, we decided to do differently on Mars Express and they gave me music, they composed themselves already. Like they were it was really short pieces of music. It was a bit rough. Just not

Yeah, it was just how do you call that? Anyway, and I used that. Sometimes it was just in loop, a small lullaby or a small

mood with you know, cores and stuff like that. So it was a bit empty, but there was a mood and it was their mood. So, yeah, the composer were, they have no problem to let themselves inspired by what they tried first or to put it away and to start back from scratch. and me neither because the music were not so developed. So, yeah, we tried that way. We work that way. Yeah, I talk a lot about temp music.

And we were doing back and forth. Yeah, we were going back and forth between editing and new music, they will send me and they sent me, sorry. And yeah, little by little, we made it. I talk a lot about temp music. I'm a very music-brained person. And sometimes you can tell when a composer is, you know, kind of, can you make it like this existing track?

And sometimes you can tell it's just a common enough thing. Because people want to see how it looks like in the edit. And also sometimes, you know, like part of the, industry element, like sometimes being able to present the unfinished partway product, whether to producers or investors, requires some level of convincing and having existing music can be a useful tool in that sense. Yeah, it's just a part of the industry. Yeah, and sometimes when you can spot in a movie that the music is really close.

to another one, I know. It's not necessarily because the composer still another music or copied something or had a lack of inspiration, but it's maybe because of the all the director or the producer

because they were into another one and they didn't want it to change their mind on the tempo music and they asked always the guy to more like the temp track, more like it. Yeah.

And in the end, it's like, yeah. Because when you see it with the edit, you get used to it as well. And then you kind of, you're already married to the idea of it. Yeah. And it's tough when it's in existing, especially when the songs being picked, are going to be these already successful emotional tracks. It's like, I don't know, not everything needs to have that tone. Yeah, it doesn't give you much room for expression.

and it kind of creatively railroads you for those scenes. Good answer, thank you. Okay, let's do this one from Pookie Dot. What are the deepest questions asked in science fiction? I think the Mars Express experiments with a lot of ideas about their consciousness and the idea of if you like mimic it or replicate it

to such a high level is that, life is it does it deserve rights of some kind? I love that kind of protest scene or I think my favorite moment in the movie not spoiling too much is the just the self-awareness of some of these robot characters

like the idea of jail breaking them and giving them these personalities and yeah is that like a life that deserves some kind of rights and especially when the film came out to in 2023 like rights all these discussions are like AI and just all that stuff. The timing of it is just

perfect. I love these ideas. It's really good, it was a good timing for us, but in a way, and some people fail for it. I mean, some journalists were like, oh, you, you thought about the rise of AI and stuff like that. Because it was at that time when the movie was released, it was when everybody was talking about chat GPT, Dali, mid-journey. and we were like, no, we didn't tend to...

It's a classic subject. It's a classic theme in sci-fi, you know. Sci-fi never wait for us for talking about that. So, no, it's just a coincidence. Lucky coincidence for us because, yeah, of course, some people angled their paper about the film on this. But, yeah, it's pure coincidence. in a way.

But yeah, the most, the deepest theme in sci-fi, I don't know. There's so many. And every theme, every subject can be deep depending on the angle you're taking on them. Very true. But regarding his question is about Mars Express specifically? It's for all of us. No, I just kind of made it about Mos Express, but just for every. the room, what appeals to you, the deepest kind of questions that science fiction can

tend to kind of veer into or answer. Yeah. Visceralift to me, it's the existential feeling I have at the end of 2001 the Space Odyssey. Yes. Of course, because, yeah, it's, you don't exactly can point. what the movie is about with word, but you can feel it's existential. And yeah, I mean,

the fact it's, it's just about the visuals, it's about all these feelings comes from the specific language of cinema is why I really enjoy the feeling I have on that movie. And that's why I think it's, the movie in science fiction that is the most effective efficient about deep deep thoughts and deep themes you know because because there's no words I think something that I love seeing in

science fiction is something that is not only existentially terrifying but also something that presents it in a way that reminds us that like we're not the the apay like end all be all of thought and understanding. So like you mentioned with 2001 A Space Odyssey, the presentation of it keeps it in a way where, oh, of course, the main character doesn't understand what's happening here either, and he's not meant to, right? So as the audience, we don't get fed that information.

Or another example would be under the skin, where there's a horror to what's happening because we don't understand it. And it makes sense if you delve into and dive and research other discussions taking place about it. There's people that have pretty sensible answers for what's going on. And I guess also under the skin was based off of a book that was more descriptive. But even at the end of the die fantasy music video, I remember that being particularly terrifying to me when I was younger, especially, because we're not given a full explanation of everything

that Eldritch horror at the end, we see the results, we see what's happening, but we don't understand why, and she doesn't understand why. That is something that's really cool. Like, we're not meant to. We're insignificant, and it ties into the existential terror.

I like that all right. This is why I think the latest alien movies are disappointing. I mean, since Prometheus, in the previous aliens movie, alien movies, you know, humans were not the center of the galaxy. They were creature in the vast space in the universe. And suddenly with Prometheus, humanity became,

central in a way because it's all about humans and all these ecology and stuff we saw in all those films are like it's all linked to humans in fact it's disappointing because yeah it's not frightening anymore

yeah they started answering the open-ended questions that might be scary to begin with and then the answers were kind of silly yeah that's always the risk yeah also also also But those movies would have been, I think, better if they were not linked to the alien saga, you know. Just told a different story.

Stop with sequels. Yeah, well, put more faith in original projects. Everybody has to vote with your wallet and make sure that industry understands that we want more original ideas from creative filmmakers. Otherwise, the problem is everybody buys a ticket to see the sequel and IP. And then they keep getting made. Yeah. But there's nothing. There's not other possibilities.

So, yeah, it's a snake that is eating his own tail. Yeah. I mean, I was going to say, my favorite sci-fi concept is, what if an alien was super scary and wanted to eat me? So I'm pretty happy with Hollywood, right? now. Okay, okay. Good for you. Yeah. Okay. Alex, did you? You kind of touched. Yeah, I thought I've got to answer it, right? Like, just the idea of, I'm glad you brought up the kind of cosmic horror angle, because there's a lot in common with it. I just think unanswered questions about

humanity or what is out there, where did we come from, you know, what is consciousness, or all the kind of deepest questions, I feel like science fiction and this kind of cosmic horror or just horror in general is perfect for that kind of emptiness. And yeah, I love films that find that right balance. So if you mentioned like an alien or just knowing when to leave, when to just stop, just to cut it off and let you fill in the blanks, you know. Information that you don't show is just as, if not more important than information that you do show. It's the choice of what not to show. That's my perspective anyway. And I guess that kind of links into John.

this to be the last question? I kind of round this one down. Well, I mean, how are you feeling, Jeremy? Did you want to do a few more questions or just one more? If you're not pressed for time and you have time to do like three more, then I'm fine with like three more. It's okay. Let's go for two more questions. Two more? Perfect. Okay, two more. Okay, let's do this one. Or maybe more. I don't know. Continuing on from kind of what we're talking about, I'm curious to delve into this from Sloth. 710. So the question for Jeremy. With your work in animation

and your influence in Lovecraft horrors we're just talking about would you say there's a lot to say existentially in adding those elements into your work

because that's an ongoing theme with your stuff it seems you like that existential kind of exploration of these ideas and specifically through a horror lens

like the fear that you can pull out of someone. Yeah, I don't know. It's true. In fact I worked in the field of horror, especially on fantasy, and that's it.

I mean, there's some glimpse of it in Last Man, and maybe in the next movie I'm working on right now, but it's not a horror movie anyway. I don't know if I would work on a new horror project later. Maybe, maybe not. We don't know yet. We can't say, I can't say.

But yeah, it's something I really enjoy the cosmic horror. And not necessarily that it has to be cosmic and gigantic and stuff like that. But what I like in the field of cosmic horror is, like you said before, it's the unanswered questions. And the fact you don't understand, it's difficult to describe what happens. and what you see. It's very lovecraftian, in fact, of course. He tries to describe what is not possible to describe. And, yeah, the fact you don't understand the logic.

Yeah, it's the illogical ecology of a creature or of, I don't know whether, or let's say everything you could for instance for the back rooms you know those video series on YouTube by Ken Pixel are in a way

some kind of cosmic horror I think even if it's a mix with different trends in in horror like analog horror and stuff like that but you don't really understand You try to decipher what's happening.

And there's a lot of space for the audience to project their own ideas. They are their own fears. And it's a great way for the audience to appropriate the movie for themselves and to fill the blanks and to feel involved in that universe. And that's why even out of horror, you can do that with any genre, in any genre, you can do it. that. Even in Mars Express, we don't explain everything and we are doing that bet that the audience will find some answers that satisfies themselves or sometimes maybe they will be frustrated,

but it's part of the experience. So yeah, but of course horror and fear and anxiety is a good, territory for that kind of interaction with a movie and with the audience. Engagement. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There's something about horror that speaks to people in a way that other genres don't. Like, general audiences tend to be not that curious to try out new things unless there's some kind of horror hook to it.

will scare them. Like, people will go and see original horror movies and if it's got a good word of mouth and it doesn't necessarily have to be a sequel or an IP for it to really take off. And I just, something in my gut just tells me that an animated, a 2D animated, freaky horror project could really, really connect in the current kind of media landscape. But it's just not really being served at the moment. Yeah, we'll see where it goes. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do this one then from Pueva.

We kind of nodded towards this a couple times, but what do you think the reason is for animation being treated with more respect in other countries than in America? What do you think the heart of that is? Do you think it's training audiences just to be used to, like kids media being the most popular? Where do you think that comes from and why it's stuck? Sorry, can you repeat the question?

I mean, does you mean in America, the animation is badly treated contrary to other countries. What you're saying earlier about it kind of being associated with kids content only or crude family comedies. Yeah, sure.

It's cultural habits, in my opinion. It's, I don't know, I didn't do any social studies and stuff like that, of course. But to me, it's cultural habits only. It's completely build.

It's buildup. social contrast. Like many social stuff, you know, of course. And every culture is self-fulfilling. Open times. But also, to me, the main model for the old Western animation industry is Disney, of course. And Disney is American. So of course, it's even more pregnant.

Not pregnant. sorry. It's because it looks like a French word. It doesn't mean at all that. Prominent. It's even more prominent in the US, of course. But I don't know. Also, it's what my explanation would be like what I said in the beginning of that podcast.

It's also the fact that method. of how to do animation in America involved. You know, I was invited to the Annie Awards. It's like the Oscar for Animation. It takes place in L.A. and stuff. Maybe you know that. And it was really interesting because the award for the best independent movie, the category, all the movie.

all the movie selected in that category were, it was like the award for the best foreign movie. Oh, yeah. Because, yeah, there was no American movie there. All the American production were in, are made by studio, big studios, you know, like Dreamworks, Pixar, Disney, Sony Pictures, whatever. So there's no independent American animation, you know,

There's maybe Bill Plimpton still doing movies, but he's doing them half with French fundings, and so it's half French, half American. So maybe you can count on Filthipat to do a movie every 30 years now. But there's no really indie American movies in animation. Yeah, it's so risk-averse and reactive too. Yeah, so every project is more studied by marketing people and stuff like. I guess it's way more complicated to do something that is out of the habits of the industry in that field.

Yeah. Because it seemed like there was towards the end of the 90s in the early 2000s, they kind of dipped their toe in with like, it wasn't like adult animation, but more like a titanee or a treasure planet, like trying to get more of like a teen audience or be a little bit edgy with it. But neither of the, it bombed obviously and they just kind of gave up. I was like, they took away, they always take the wrong lessons away from the way these things perform and maybe it's just the wrong story at the wrong time or maybe it was just competing with CG kind of animation.

I just couldn't compete. That's a whole other problem. Yeah, really. Yeah, exactly. It's, yeah, it's an unfortunate way to, I just don't get just throwing out the baby with the bathwater with the concept of 2D animation as a medium for telling a story. And, you know, when you look at the budget for something like a Mars Express and

compare it to these $150 million animated movies that are coming out and sometimes they bomb and they loaded. All of this misery. Yeah, there is something bloated to it when it's like, man,

but like I said, it's not because it's a 2D animation versus CG animation that is making the difference with the budget because all the DreamWorks

animated film in 2D like Prince of Egypt or... Yeah, very expensive. Yeah, it was very expensive despite the fact it was in 2D

with some part in CG, but just like Mars Express we have also some part in CGI like the robots or some backgrounds or all the the vehicles and stuff like that but yeah I think it's more

about the way they are making them and the way they are organized doing those films it comes from the some sort of a tradition of how they

are making animated movies coming from Disney. You know, there's a director, but you don't know exactly who is that director. You never hear about that guy. It's more a studio films and everybody is writing the script. It's a teamwork in a way. You can see some picture about Disney working on the script of Snow White, for instance, or other classic Disney movie.

And they are in front of a different illustration that are supposed to covering the whole movie, you know, like illustrating the whole movie. And they are like trying to change the order of those pictures to it's like writing with drawings, you know. Yeah. And everybody has his own idea about what they should do, what they could do. And so. Too many cooks. Yeah. I think there's too many cooks.

Yeah, exactly. Too many cooks. In a way, yeah, I think it's not really efficient. But I can get what their intentions are. It's like if everybody is working on it and let's take all the ideas of everybody and it will be a rich movie and stuff like that. But they think it's less risky. Yeah, they are losing a lot of energy there.

in my opinion. But I talked about that with people in the industry in the United States, even with producer. And they are, maybe they are polite with me. I don't know. But they were like, oh, yeah, you're right. Now, it's such a pity. We are losing so much energy. And I was like, yeah, so change that.

It seems like a curse for them. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's just a cultural way of working. and it's difficult to change that, I don't know. All right. Yeah. Sorry, Alex, where are you going to?

Sorry. No, I was just going to put one little bit of hopium at the end of that, I guess, with... I don't know if something is happening. I feel like we're on the cusp of something with this hunger. And I don't know if it's what you're saying earlier about anime and anime fans just being so into anime. But, like, Chainsaw Man and Demon Hunter, like, being in some of the most profitable films of, like, the previous years. Like, that's an interesting new trend that I feel like indicates something's happening with that. People are willing to go out and pay money and see on the big screen and kind of appreciate it and respect it outside of Japan, which I think is cool.

Yeah. Did we want to do one more question or no? Let's try a last one, yes. Because I can feel like I'm less efficient than in the business. beginning fading it's okay yeah speaking english i'm like night time i can feel i'm searching more my words say yeah no of course um let's try you last last one let's go let's do a less kind of uh existential question from the corn corneous lima sorry if you could time travel which film would you most want to witness the shooting of uh oh the production i think for me it's got to be it's got to be

stalker, like the whole way that film was, like, shot twice, basically. Oh, yeah. Do you want to die? Didn't they all, like, die after that? If you witnessed it, you would also die. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was about to say that. I'd have to sacrifice my life.

Yeah, maybe it'll be worth it. So you want to witness the first one? Yeah. Maybe if I've got, like, a hazmat suit or something? Yeah. Sure. Mine would be the day the clown cried so that I could see this film that never got released.

And that would be very interesting to watch too. I feel like we've had this question before maybe, but I'm going to go with Nashville. I feel like the chaos and energy of that. It's so exciting. Yeah. Oh my God, I have no idea. I could say body double just to link with the rest of it.

But yeah, why not? There's no wrong answer. But also being witness of the huge set of, I don't know, let's say, 2001. Of course, with this rotating set and stuff, it should have been great. But on the fly, they have also something like that, a room that could rotate completely, you know. Yeah, kind of stuff. Yeah, that would be amazing. I don't know.

It's all good. I think I prefer to watch the movie finish than being on set and waiting. I guess it's a bit boring when you're not involved for real. I mean, yeah. Also, I'm a bit traumatized by making movies, you know, making animated movies. I'm about to go there once again and I'm like, oh my God, why I'm doing that? Because it's so hard. Are you interested in making any live action films?

Could be, could be, but it's a classic question, people ask me, but I don't have any clear answer about that. But for the moment, I think I made one movie in animation. I think I need to do more than one movie. It's just to try and to be, to feel that I made everything possible to do the, best possible work, you know, in that field. If at some point I feel like I do everything I could, maybe I'll try something else. So if I feel it, I'm too old for this shit, you know,

because it's too exhausting. Maybe I try something else. Even if I'm pretty sure doing live action film is also tiring. But because I couldn't know in advance, I could go there in an optimistic way and in a naive way, you know. Yeah. Well, I'll be eagerly watching anything you make in the future, live action or animated.

So, yeah. I'm just, I'm so happy I got to speak with you today. Yeah, thank you so much for joining and staying so long. And thank you for the recommendation. And obviously, thank you for your films as well.

Yeah, This was a great conversation. Thank you for having me, guys. Yeah, and so just making sure everybody in the audience knows, check out Mars Express. You should be able to find it on Crunchyroll in Canada and the U.S., I believe, maybe in other places too. Check Prime video, check. I rented it on Prime. Okay, there you go.

And whose turn is it for a recommendation also? That's a great question. I feel like it's mine. I think it is because we did Peter 5-8 was last. Well, that was, yeah. I don't remember the order ever. I always know when it's not my turn directly after, but then I don't know who it is.

Oh, yeah, Days of Heaven was before Peter 5-8. Wait, so it's mine? Yeah, that would be yours again. I just double-checked. Good thing I checked. I tried to steal it. Okay. Oh, you weren't even prepared.

Well, Jake thinks While you think then Sorry, what now? No, I'm just saying I think the audience would also Like we mentioned last man a couple times It's really cool, really unique Really strange and different

And isn't a Crisis Young On this one, YouTube now, right? I think you can check out Yeah, maybe the censored version of it Yeah, probably But Crisis Young Just to be fair with the team who made it.

I'm not the director of it. You have to know. It's another Jeremy. It's Jeremy Warro. And it's Batiste Gober. There are the two directors of that TV show. But I worked on it as I created it with Batis Gober. And yeah, I made one storyboard and that's it.

I wrote, I participated in the writing of it. and I worked on it, but I'm not a director. It's just for Jeremy and Batiste to be quoted. All right, Jake, did you figure it out? You know what? Under extreme pressure, I made a snap decision. This is a lot to recommend one of my favorite movies at all time. that is

1946 is my darling Clementine directed by John Ford all right nice I have not seen it me neither

okay we're in old school get an old school get an old school perfect all right for anybody listening if you don't want to be

spoiled for my darling darling Clementine watch it before the next episode these episodes come out every two weeks you can listen to them early by going to sardonicass

dot com sign up for premium it's only a few bucks a month also patreon.com slash sardonicast. Also, you can click the members join button underneath the YouTube video. We've got a Sardonicist Highlights Channel if you want to subscribe to that. And I believe that's everything.

And Jeremy, did you have anything else you wanted to promote, like a social media account or anything? If people want to follow you, where do they find you? Not really. I didn't expect this, so I'm not prepared. That's okay. Whatever. Just watch the movie, everybody. If you want to find me, you'll find me.

Correct, correct. Thank you so much. Awesome. Have a happy Mars Express, everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye, everybody. Bye.