5x2

5x2 A movie by François Ozon ... still a thorn in my heart.



Interview magazine met Valéria Bruni-Tedeschi (Marion)

some extracts here...

5x2 is based around five moments in the life of a couple, Marion and Gilles, told backwards in time. What do these five moments mean to you?

They are the different stages of a love story. And at every stage, I feel that Francois was able to direct us to the heart of what mattered: the heart of what it means to meet someone, to get married, have children, separate. Stephane Freiss and I play concrete human beings who are also archetypes. He is Man. I am Woman.

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The music was right, it was what I wanted to hear. I wanted to make the film in the same way Marion wanted happiness.

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And the idea of having Italian songs to provide a kind of punctuation to the film? Is that a homage to your origins?

Not really, I cannot claim that. There's something romantic, something kitsch and ironic in those Italian songs. It injects some humor into the film, and provides a different way in. There is also a great deal of hope in those Italian songs, a longing for love and being loved. That desire for love, that naiveté were another reason for my accepting the part. From the start, one feels Gilles and Marion married not opportunistically, nor out of boredom but because physically, they suited each other: they fell in love, like a proper couple, dreaming of a bright future. They are in no way cynical. Whatever the setbacks, the harshness of experience and all the negative examples, the film says that it's right to launch out into the Utopian folly of love, in the belief that it can work. This film is quite the opposite to films about love stories that go wrong. This one is about love stories that start out well

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Is that why François Ozon cast you as the couple in 5 x 2?

Yes, I think there was something very obvious in the screen tests we did with a scene taken from Ingmar Berman's "Scenes From Married Life". We were asked to play a man and a woman angry with each other, but still connected by a shared past and a long history of love. The couple is at war, in the process of separating, and yet you feel "Maybe they shouldn't separate." Which is true at the beginning of François' film too.

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Gilles seems more fragile than Marion. Do you think that's true in most couples, is it something that relates to our times?

I can't answer that. I don't know how to make generalizations and I understand nothing about how couples function. In my personal experience, perhaps men are more cowardly than women, more cowardly and less able to take the initiative, to take the bull by the horns, confront things, to speak and be there when things turn difficult. It's true that men have a horrible habit of running away. At the same time, I feel slightly artificial saying that. I feel like I'm saying what one's meant to say, but at the same time I'm not so sure. And I certainly didn't set about my work in that perspective. I didn't set out with theoretical considerations about love, I set out to serve the story. With one basic premise, which is that Marion wants to be happy. That was my starting-point.

500 000 people

That's approximately the population in Helsinki .


After arriving by ferry to Helsinki from Stockholm J and I visited the city, including a trip to Suomelina island "the Nordic Gibraltar" as it was on its days of splendour and war. We spend more of the time there, walking, enjoying the good weather, visiting the museum and even an old WWII submarine. This was the highlight of the trip, so old, so narrow and of course a weapon of war. I know, wars are stupid, killing other humans is barbarian but...how nice artefacts they have produced. Now an historical and recreational place, the whole of the island is devoted to the old fort...to war.

My friend and I said goodbye at 18h after meeting her boyfriend. They had a midsummer celebration ahead the next day, which is a big thing in Scandinavia . From my part and after checking in the hostel I was lucky enough to find a place where to dance Salsa! It was incredible...the atmosphere, the people, the behaviour is very similar to what I have experienced in Bristol . As always there were people I liked to dance with and people with it just didn't work.

The highlights of the night were three:

M, an English mate who has been living here for years gave me a good bunch of impressions about the Finnish culture. For example he considers the Finns more alcoholic and colder than the English! (I suppose that is why at some point during the night a drunk guy approached me to tell me "Not smiles!" Unfortunately he didn't answer to me when I asked him "Why?" with a smile.) M said that if someone has a problem they leave that person alone, that they can be aggressive but it takes time to them to explode.
A friendly Finnish girl I enjoyed dancing with and chatting.
A Russian girl who was too shy or to proud to dance but insisted on talking. I almost had the impression that that old couple that she introduced me as her “friends” were her parents!