| Jeepers Keepers |
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
DISCO BOY Giacomo Abbruzzese’s debut digs into the mystery of the French Foreign Legion…
Years ago, Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese met a man in a club – a soldier who was strutting his stuff on the dancefloor. ‘I was very intrigued by this,’ he says. ‘He was embodying these two different [physical] tendencies.’ It was enough to light the spark for his debut feature Disco Boy, a visually mesmerising odyssey in which Belarusian drifter Aleksei (Franz Rogowski) escapes into Poland and then France, where he joins the French Foreign Legion – on the promise of French citizenship if he lasts five years in the corps.
The romantic notion of joining the Legion was something that immediately intrigued Abbruzzese.
‘There is something, for sure, very poetic [about this]. It has a mystery, it’s very iconic,’ he says, acknowledging that his film will automatically bear comparison to Claire Denis’ 1999 masterpiece Beau Travail, which is also set in the Legion. ‘It’s a movie that a lot of people told me about when I was financing the film but I never saw it.’ Finally, he watched it before shooting. ‘I was shocked how many common poetic connections there are in the film. This idea of connecting dancing with the soldier’s body.’
Nevertheless, Disco Boy has its own streak of originality, with Aleksei crossing paths with Niger Delta rebel fighter Jomo (Morr Ndiaye) on a hostage rescue mission in Nigeria. Abbruzzese also recruited music producer Vitalic to create the score heard in the club scenes. ‘I wanted these electronic elements that are sometimes lyrical, melancholic and a bit bizarre.’
Even more bizarre is the Parisian disco set in a church. ‘I was interested to show the discotheque in an unusual way, in a holy way,’ he explains. ‘Through dancing, through trance, you can get this kind of connection.’ All of this is channelled through Rogowski’s spellbinding performance. ‘Franz is an artist and not only a good actor. He has a deepness,’ the director notes of the rising German star. ‘I don’t like to work just with people who are good executives. I like to work with people [who] have their own universe.’
DISCO BOY OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 29 MARCH.
Q&A
Franz Rogowski
How tough was it to prepare for Disco Boy?
I think it has been a challenge, but rather a nice challenge. I think the worst challenge is to not know what to do. And here there was a lot to prepare. So, yeah, it was tough – rehearsals every day, dance training, stretching… 1234! But all those are very concrete friends. The harder is the unknown land that you’re going into – the unpreparedness.
How do you see the film? As a story about trauma?
It’s limiting to see this movie as a story of humans, being told to make you understand what they are going through. It’s also a fairy tale… I really like to think of it as a painting and not just as a psychological drama of traumatised human beings.
After this and Passages, how are you coping with all the attention?
It’s OK, it’s been a couple of years now I’ve gotten all this attention and I have to be honest with you, I like attention! So, no, I’m very thankful, and I try to give my best. I feel a lot of great opportunities have come along the way and it might change. I’m ready for that. Maybe it’ll be over soon. But for now I’m surfing the wave.