CUT I ES | PRODUCTION
our lead finds herself with a choice: have the traditional role of women thrust upon her like her mother, or discover a new and radical type of womanhood with the help of her new friends. Just mentioning ‘pre-teen’ and ‘womanhood’ together is enough to ring alarm bells for some – and so we find our controversy. Doubtless, these are difficult waters to navigate. Some argue that difficult real-world ideas like the sexualisation of young girls are impossible to explore fully in art without showing them as they truly are, while others argue that to do so is gratuitous and only serves to feed the issue. Having written the script with heavy influence drawn from her own experiences as a girl, Doucouré is as qualified as any to tackle the issue, and evidently, she opted for the direct approach. But, with outraged surface readings and huge degrees of reductivism surrounding the film, much of its nuance is lost. So perhaps, at least here, the more poignant question is not why the film was made in such a manner, but how . To find answers, we talked to the film’s director of photography, Yann Maritaud. thematically, but also visually. As Maritaud explains, these two elements were not at all disconnected. “From the earliest prep, one of the most important things for Maïmouna and me was to tell Amy’s story from her point of view. We worked hard not to have an adult eye on the story, but to have the viewer put themselves in the shoes of this pre-teenager for an hour and a half.” UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL Cuties is an extremely intimate film, ABOVE DOP Yann Maritaud shot Cuties using the Alexa Mini, because it’s lightweight, functional and the LCD was useful for shooting at hip height
We wanted a very organic way of filming, staying as close to Amy’s feelings as possible
girls, but in others we intrude and trespass on moments we feel we simply shouldn’t see as adults. Despite the challenging feelings these latter scenes invoke, they were a critical part of the film’s exploration. Perhaps only in looking at the larger whole can we approve or disapprove. “The camera never lets go of Amy’s viewpoint through her life experiences,” Maritaud says. “Some experiences are still very childish, and some push her too abruptly and prematurely into an adult posture that appears disturbing. It’s precisely by always keeping this same closeness that certain scenes, because of their content, are received very differently. “Overall, for me, there was something instinctive in the way I shot the film – in choosing a point of view at the beginning and not letting go of it under any pretext.” Taking a brief moment to address criticisms of the film, Maritaud deliberates. “My position is very clear: the purpose of
It’s true, Amy is very rarely subject to an adult’s gaze – viewer not included. In line with this, we often find ourselves in unique frames. Early in the film, when Amy hides under her mother’s bed, for example. Here, we’re offered only an extreme close-up of Amy’s face and her point of view of her mother’s feet as she stifles tears down the phone. Throughout, the camerawork treads a fine line; we’re not aware of the camera in a direct sense, but there’s a pervading feeling of being very close to the bone. “We wanted a very organic way of filming, staying as close to Amy’s feelings and emotions as possible,” Maritaud explains. “So, we decided to make the whole film with handheld camera, positioned at the height of the teenagers’ eyes. We wanted to show only the things that Amy can see or imagine.” Where this takes us as viewers differs greatly from scene to scene. At times, we share a nostalgic childhood joy with the
NOVEMBER 2020 | DEF I N I T ION 15
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