At the start of 2023, as the awards campaign for Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage” was in full swing, a bombshell landed: Florian Teichtmeister, one of its lead actors, was charged with possession of child pornography.
On Friday, Kreutzer debuts her latest film, “Gentle Monster,” in competition at Cannes. Its subject: a man is charged with possession of child pornography.
So, did the revelations about Teichtmeister – who pled guilty to the charge – influence “Gentle Monster”? “It didn’t really,” Kreutzer tells Variety. “The thing is, I was already working on the script before all that happened. Obviously, I was stunned, because I knew him.”
In “Gentle Monster,” we follow singer-pianist Lucy Weiss, played by Léa Seydoux, as she slides into a nightmare as the police investigate her husband Philip (played by Laurence Rupp), a filmmaker, after child porn is found on his computer.
“I read a newspaper article about the subject in 2020, and it was a very good piece of journalism, a long article, and very explicit,” she tells Variety. “It stayed with me, and I just felt like I had to do something, and the only thing I can do is tell a story about it.”
Léa Seydoux plays singer-pianist Lucy Weiss in Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage.”
Courtesy of Frederic Batier, Film AG
“Two days before I learned about [the charges against Teichtmeister], I had had a one-and-a-half-hour research conversation with a police investigator [about child pornography], so I was in it, and then this happened.”
Kreutzer thought she would have to shelve “Gentle Monster” due to the similarities with the Teichtmeister case. “It was crazy, and when we had the scandal and the shitstorm, and it became really difficult, I felt like, ‘Okay, I can’t do this film anymore because everyone would always connect it [with the Teichtmeister case],’ and then it didn’t take very long until I realized, ‘No, that’s maybe not a good reason to not make the film, it’s maybe even more of a reason [for me to make it].’”
The film’s subject is likely to be a talking point in Cannes, so what would Kreutzer like those conversations to zero in on?
“For me, it’s a film about honesty … and being honest to oneself. When you see something in someone, or you learn something about someone, believe it. Obviously, believe the victims, but also believe it if you have a gut feeling, or if you learn something about someone that you don’t want to know.
“A word that came up often during the research was ‘shame.’ It’s shame that makes us look away; it’s shame that makes us not confront this. In personal relationships, but also as a society.
“Sometimes, because we are all well-behaved, we’re like, ‘Oh, that can’t be true. He’s such a nice guy.’ It’s not the creepy guy behind the bush. It could be your partner, your friend, your father, someone you know, who you trust and you like … a cool guy.”
The film’s title reflects this issue. “The monstrous or evil thing can come from a very nice person,” she says.
The vast majority of those that commit these crimes are men, and – to a large extent – it is rooted in the lust for power, Kreutzer says. “Why is it always around power? What do we tell [boys] when they are growing up? Why is power such an important thing for them?,” she asks.
In the film, we see that the policewoman assigned to the case, played by Jella Haase, finds it difficult to confront her father when it becomes clear that he is sexually harassing his female caregiver. This sub-plot “mirrors” the central story, Kreutzer says, showing that we can “look the other way if it makes our lives easier,” and this applies to the professionals in this field too. “All of the women in the film are basically trying to fix the lives of the men they live with,” she says.
Catherine Deneuve plays Lucy’s mother Eloise, who has no significant man in her life and who has, we discover, been keen that her daughter maintains her independence. “She is someone who has always made her own decisions, and who knew what she wanted, and where she wanted to go, and what she wanted to do,” Kreutzer says. “She is a strong mother, with very clear views on things, which she doesn’t shy away from telling her daughter. But, although she is tough on her daughter at times, she is always warm. That was important to me.”
A woman’s struggle for independence when she’s in a relationship, and when “both partners are passionate about their work,” becomes even tougher when they have children, and this Kreutzer has experienced first-hand. “Who has more freedom for his or her work when there are kids? Women are still being judged … I always get the question, ‘Where’s your daughter?’ when I’m traveling. My husband has four kids. He never gets that question. So that’s a little bit where that came from.”
