Jan 12, 2024

Oscar Candidate Interview: Director Stephanie Clément on Her Favorite Shot in “Pachyderme” (Exclusive Interview)

We invited the makers of the 15 films nominated for this year's Academy Awards for Best Animated Short to share their favorite shots from their films and why. Each film is listed in the order in which the materials were received. Voting for the nominations began yesterday, January 11, and will run through January 16.

In this piece, director Stéphanie Clément shares her favorite clips from “Pachyderme,” which screened in competition in Annecy and Zagreb and won Best Short Film at the Manchester Animation Festival (2022).

The film's sensitive narration tells the story of a young girl's survival in the face of abuse. The striking animation is a visual metaphor for the dissociative nature of the trauma suffered by the protagonist.

Below, Clément introduces his favorite shot of the film and tells us what it means:

Of all the shots in the film, I chose this one as my favorite because it serves as the first test shot and is at the heart of the story an important It shows dissociation, which is a psychological defense mechanism at the heart of the story. Louise submerges herself in a world of imagination to escape an experience that is too heavy to bear. The same idea is echoed in the soundtrack, where the rustling of leaves is gradually heard, but does not completely drown out the creaking of the wooden floor. The almost monotonous, insubstantial voice of the adult Louise, played by actress Christa Zellett, belies the state of emotional anesthesia in which she is immersed.

Louise is a reserved, silent, overly well-behaved girl, which is reflected in her frozen demeanor, expressionless face, and slow, withdrawn, hesitant, almost clumsy gestures. His minimalist, restrained acting style was partly inspired by the children's performances in the films Clear Cuervos (Carlos Saura, 1976) and The Seventh Continent (Michael Haneke, 1989).

The orange-brown floral wallpaper that was common in French middle-class interiors in the 1960s and 1970s is a recreation of a motif I encountered as a child and wanted to replace it in the same way for this film. I wanted to replace it with a more modern version, because at the time, what I saw were not flowers and leaves, but a mass of staring faces and tangled bodies. Years later, when I looked again in preparation for this film, I found it difficult to see anything but plants.

This shot is also a good example of collaboration between the traditional animation studio Formage and the 3D team at TNZPV Studios. The floral motif, animated in 2D by the talented Marc Robinet, had to grow and wrap around Louise, animated in 3D by the talented Marthe Delaporte, with the slow delicacy of putting a child to bed. I think the two techniques worked in harmony here and helped make this shot one of the most important in the film.

Read other entries in the series: