Julie Delpy on "Lolo" and What Is Missing in the English Translation

On March 22, the KCET Cinema Series screened "Lolo" at the ArcLight Cinemas Sherman Oaks. Written and directed by the film's star, Julie Delpy, "Lolo" is a French-language romantic comedy about a 45-year-old woman whose new relationship is threatened by her adult son. "Lolo" also stars Dany Boon, Vincent Lacoste and Karin Viard. 

Delpy, who was in the San Fernando Vally filming the forthcoming drama "The Bachelors," stopped by the ArcLight for a Q/A session led by Pete Hammond, host of the Cinema Series and Awards Editor/Columnist for Deadline Hollywood. During the chat, Delpy talked about how horror films influence her comedies, what's lost when translating from French to English and a variety of other subjects. The following is an excerpt from the screening, which has been edited. 

The KCET Cinema Series is sponsored by the E. Hofert Dailey Trust. This year's spring season features eight weeks of sneak previews of top movies followed by Q/A sessions with the films' talent. 

On the origins of "Lolo."

Some people get disturbed by his… Some people say he's sick. The character, obviously, the actor is a wonderful guy who is lovely, sweet and funny and loved playing this kind of narcissist sociopath because no one has asked him to play anything like that. We worked on another film before that called "The Skylab" that I directed. He was 17 and played a part in it and he was fantastic, so I decided to write the new film for him. "Lolo" was the film. 

How horror films influenced "Lolo."

I love ["The Bad Seed"]. Actually, the film was inspired by that film. It's true. usually, when I start writing comedies, i think of horror films or dramas as a baseline. You know like the ending, where the daughter shows up at the end, it's a little bit like the hand in "Carrie" that comes out of the grave, you know. I always like that in horror films. The last shot of the horror film is always some crazy, Freddie comes out of the closet or something. Freddie from Elm Street, whatever. 

The film is built like a thriller or horror film, actually, but it happens to be a comedy. 

On making a romantic comedy where the female lead is in her 40s. 

To me, I'm in my 40s, and I really believe  life doesn't end in your 40s. Thank God! 

When people ask me, you look in the past of your life, I'm like, no no, my life is starting now. I mean, in a lot of ways, I'm so much better where I'm at now then I was before. 

Actually, I believe that people can fall in love, I guarantee that you can fall in love at 88…and it feels like the first time, depending on the person. I personally think that. I know that, for a fact, I'm not going to get into details but, yeah. 

The lesson of "Lolo."

Love wins. There's the little wink at the end with the daughter, but, really they win and he loses. In fact, the film is quite hopeful. You can be in a relationship with someone and someone is trying to destroy it-- it being the son-- which is actually quite complex because it is actually the person you love the most, your flesh and blood, and what do you do? It's kind of perverse. It's very difficult for her to see the reality. If it were an ex-husband or co-worker or friend or a boss it would probably be easier to maybe get away from him. It's to show that perverse and narcissist and sociopath don't necessarily win the elections-- sorry-- 

Sorry, I had to. 

They don't always win. I just want to be very optimistic. 

On getting French star Dany Boon for "Lolo."

I wrote it with him in mind, yet, I had very little, slim, chance to get him and he agreed to do it right away. 

I wrote it for him. Him being a big star like this, I think some people try to get him so that they can get financing for the film. I think because I really wrote it for him and genuinely for him. I think when he read the screenplay, he felt like it was true. I wrote it for him because I wanted it for him and not for who he is and the star he is you know, because I really think he pulled it off better than anyone else because it's not an easy part. You want him to be naive, but not dumb. He's not a dumb guy. He's an extremely brilliant guy. He's just very pure. He's the opposite of Lolo, which is all perversion and twisted, a bad seed, like something has grown out of whack in him.

On the root of Lolo's bad behavior. 

And the poor mom. Has she done something wrong? Yes, she has, probably. Probably, he was born a little bad and it grew into this big bad wolf. I think it's a little bit of both. I think that people that are bad, there's something at first that, the lack of empathy starts very early. Or not. 

On making the comedy believable. 

It's always balancing the scenes and also the acting, that it's over-the-top at times so it's funny, but also you go back to scenes-- for example, the cafeteria, where it's kind of sweet and real, when he was hurt by the doctor for the testing on his thing. Then you have a real scene between them where it's sweet and funny and not over-the-top. So, you go back and forth, which kind of brings a balance. Maybe the film goes over-the-top a few times because it is a comedy and you can't, obviously, keep it straight. You have to go a little far. At the same time, if you think about what happens, it's not insane, impossible. It's not like [Lolo] gets, he just does very minimal things which have tremendous repercussions. He's a very manipulative person. 

On writing and directing. 

I wrote my first screenplay, I was 16. Actually, I started writing it when I was 15 and finished it when I was 16. I tried to make it; No one financed it, obviously, even though people liked it. This great editor in France wanted to publish it as a book, but I didn't want to do that because then it wouldn't be a film, which was stupid because it could have been a book and then a film. But, I was obsessed with making it a film. Anyway, it doesn't matter. 

I was 16 and I didn't know sh- it's like, whatever, I didn't know what I was doing and often I don't. Even now and I'm 46. Whatever. 

Basically, I went to film school, when I was in my early 20s, I went to NYU film school, so I started doing short films. Then, I did a short film in 1994, "Blah Blah Blah," that went to Sundance. I did a film entirely self-financed, shot in 24 hours, entirely improvised, called "Looking for Jimmy" that went to this festival in Swiss Italy, no, Italian Swiss. What was the film festival again? Locarno, something. It was selected, but I couldn't finish it on time. Didn't show it. It was a nightmare. 

Eventually, when I was 36, I was about to get 500,000 euros to make "Two Days in Paris." 

It was a success for an indie film, especially because it cost nothing, everyone made money-- but me-- everyone was happy. I was poor and happy. That's it. Then I was able to make the next one. 

How Delpy's uncredited writing for "Before Sunrise" helped her career. 

It gave me more self-confidence because a lot of people liked the specific scenes and bits that I had written, without knowing that I had written them… It made me more confident. I can write things that people like. In a way, I was frustrated not to be credited. It's always awful when you write things, especially your first writing, and you don't get credited, but, at the same time, it gave me the confidence to continue writing. 

The second film, we said to Richard [Linklater], this time we're not going to write it and not get credited. We were smarter. We're like, this time, we're getting credited. 

On what gets lost in translating from French to English. 

That's a very good question because there is something in this film that I couldn't translate. There's a few jokes that were missed-- that's okay-- but there's something about the language that they use, especially in the first part, is that it's almost, it's slang, it's crude, but it's also very pretty and poetic and, actually, almost 19th century style. It's almost like how people used to talk, not 19th century, but early 20th century style, meaning that certain expressions are close to what people used in the '40s, a bit as an homage to films that I love, the language of those French movies like "Hotel du Nord"... People used to have that slang that was very crude, but, at the same time, very beautiful. Or, like that writer that I love from the '40s who wrote really funny things like the "Journal of a Thief." What is it called? They're not very famous, those people, in the U.S.,  but they're my favorites. 

Or, even Renoir, there's a certain language. Or, all the films with Michel Simon, which was a wonderful actor. 

There was a slang and a dirtiness that was not as crude as the translation and I always find that-- no offense to the English language, which I love and I write in that language as well-- there's something in the French language where you can go very far into slang and crudeness and almost pornog-- not pornography, eroticism without being necessarily too vulgar. And sometimes, you can't really translate it. There's a book that I've loved since I was a kid called Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille and in English, it's too hardcore for me and, in French, it's beautiful. Sorry to say that. 

It is hardcore, but there's a beauty to it. 

So, you missed the little subtlety of the language that's is very pretty. Same thing with poetry. When I read poetry that's translated into English, like Baudelaire or Rimbaud, there's a lot of naughtiness that doesn't go through in English and it becomes a little too crude for me, but there's nothing I can do about that because there is no word to translate it. 

On whether or not she would ever turn her first script into a movie. 

I read a few lines of it that I found the other day, cleaning my, it's kind of an office in Paris where I keep my stuff. You know, it's very esoterical, very dreamy, very dark. Oh my God, it's so dark. Everyone dies at the end, it's so depressing. It's basically Alice in Wonderland, but a modern, weird, quirky version of it with a woman who goes underground in Paris and discovers this world. It's very dark and people have never seen a day of light. It's really weird. Years later, that film Underground was made by Kustusrica It was kind of like that, but with a love story in the middle, kind of. 

It wouldn't make sense to do it. Maybe I'll do it as my last film, but I'm not doing my last film yet.