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NOTEBOOKS

DEATH CERTIFICATE

63-YEAR-OLD FEMALE

DEATH REGISTERED

SUSPECTED SUICIDE BY HANGING

I'VE STARTED WRITING AGAIN, WHICH IS WHY...
I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING.

WHO WILL READ WHAT I'VE WRITTEN
IN THE DEPTHS OF THIS FOLDER

AMONG ALL THE OTHER FILES

WHY IS THERE ALWAYS THIS HOPE
OF BEING UNDERSTOOD AFTER MY DEATH?

FOUND AND SAVED.

What can I say
that I haven't already said, or that...

I want you to get to the end
of this work and get rid of it.

Why, Dad?

Your mom never
managed to get rid of it.

So, yes.

And I think that...

basically, I don't think
your future is in this, it's elsewhere.

You're dragging crates
that you don't need to drag.

Your mum dragged
them around all her life.

That's what drove her crazy.

And I think your future, your strength,
and your energy lie elsewhere.

They lie with your kids, your work,
with the people around you,

and not in a desperate attempt
to understand something

that's incomprehensible,
because it's absurd.

Shit.

At the moment, I am mostly working on...

what I call my genesis, before me.

You were writing.

DAUGHTER OF

Your last book speaks only of
your own mother, also a writer.

THE PLANE TREES

My mother is still
an incredible character.

For this book,
you recorded your conversations

with the surviving witnesses
from your childhood.

You went through
your mother's correspondence,

sorted through thousands
of photos in crates.

You read her notebooks.

You copied all the notes

she had written in the small
diaries kept in this suitcase.

I TELL CAROLE THAT
SHE'S TOO CLOSED OFF WITH ME.

SHE'LL BE BLOCKED IN HER WRITING.

You archived everything,
your writing and your mother's.

Both of your notebooks and manuscripts.

The enigma of your faces

and your voice.

BUT WHO IS CAROLE?

- Hello.
- Hello.

Come in.

- Would you like a tea, some water?
- No, I have what I need.

This was her desk.

So...

These are her jeans.

Her T-shirt.

I got a cardigan with her scarf.

A matching handbag.

Here you have her diary,

her passport,
ID card, social security card.

I have two pairs of glasses.
You can tell me which you prefer.

I bought some lenses, since your
eyes are blue and hers were brown.

Her perfume.

Here is her watch and some rings.

She always wore this necklace.

A wig.

There's a mirror there
if you want while changing.

Pass me your shoes, please.

- What?
- Your shoes.

"My mother left me an enigma."

"The story of our relationship."

You're doing exactly what she did.
You're investigating your mother.

My grandmother wrote a book
about her own mother.

After her mother's death,
Carole Achache kept a suitcase

with her mother's diaries
haphazardly thrown in.

In them, her mother noted her schedule
and quotes reflecting her mood,

as well as the photos of a life.

A life essentially dedicated to books
and those who wrote them.

Monique Lange began working
at Gallimard in the '50s,

climbing all the rungs of the ladder,
daring to start writing herself one day.

I remember this office,

with some whispering
about how I sucked, but was funny.

At that time, it was extraordinary.
This was the '50s.

We ate in the canteen,
all jostling to sit next to Camus.

I knew Genet,
who made a great mark on my life.

I knew Marguerite Duras,
Violette Leduc.

It was a great, great time.

Carole Achache,
now a photographer,

began writing about her family
and its secrets in 2008,

with "La plage de Trouville"
through the story

of her grandmother's painting,
stolen by Nazis during the Occupation.

She is now publishing with Stock
"Fille de",

a novel that tenderly
and violently describes her mother

and the life she had with her.

An incredibly lucky life spent mixing
with artists, intellectuals and writers.

An unfortunate life in which she
could not just be a protected child,

listened to, consoled.

A life in which
a strange silence settled

in the midst of the incessant,
excitable chatter of brilliant adults.

At the same time, I'd like to transpose
this kind of... great moment.

- Yes.
- Great.

- Yes.
- Of this...

Yes, there's the whole personal aspect
that's fascinating and...

- Sad.
- Yes, sad and fascinating.

- Yes.
- For a reader, it's fascinating.

My mother is an
incredible character, though.

Listen, the credits,
if it were a film.

Well, at times it's a film,
but let's forget about cinema.

This book's credits are incredible.

In this manuscript we have,
in order of appearance,

Monique Lange,
Dyonis Mascolo, Jean Genet...

Of course, we should not
rule out the possibility

that I have a particular soft spot
for the book

due to the kind image you paint of me.

Growing up where you did,
having a mother like yours,

was already somewhat lucky.

And what luck!
These were the '50s in Paris.

What Monique Lange was
on the right bank,

Marguerite Duras, whom she
knew very well, was on the left bank.

We were 25.

This was Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

That's where everything that turned out
to be decisive happened

in our youth, in our feelings,

in our beliefs, in our madness.

We had become mad
about communism.

We'd say people had the right
to decide what their struggle was.

As usual, we didn't write about it.

But no one writes about happiness.

That's how she was at that time,
Carole Achache,

politics, literature, discussions,
the night drinking and smoking.

And in the middle of that,
the kids sort of had to manage.

Yes, and it was obvious
that my mother and Duras,

they really wanted us to benefit

from this kind of happiness,
as Duras calls it,

from this kind of passion.

And then, you also have to think
that when the war was ending,

in this environment,

there was this desire for freedom
that was crazy and necessary.

That is to say that many, many people
violently turned their backs

on the war, and they went for it.

I think that they were far freer
than we were in 1968...

This is the hardest thing
I've ever done.

And... There we go. But...

Crazy and necessary.
Okay. We're good.

I think that they were far freer
than we were in 1968,

they were far braver.

And the kids, well,
we had to benefit from all that.

But you also had to adapt,
which, for a child, means

not having a childhood, having
kind of an adult life at a young age.

I couldn't have known.

I didn't know
what another child's life was like.

That's how it is,
and it's true, I was very lucky

because it's still great nourishment.

So, we can't really consider
early knowledge

to be something harmful.

But basically, there wasn't really
any playing at home.

And then also, you had to face,
at a very young age,

something now quite commonplace;
your father leaving.

I'm full of good advice here,
informed like no one else,

and embarrassed
to have to write you this letter.

Please destroy it once you've read it.

Increasingly obsessed with
what you know, I didn't hold back

when talking to a doctor
I hold in high esteem.

Don't be mad,
I'm in turmoil with all this.

Number one,
why wait two months?

You know you can't hide
what's inside you for long.

Number two, there are ways
to avoid Switzerland.

If you were here,
this could be sorted out easily.

But you, alone, so far from me, I'm
feeling more and more like we're kids.

If you could see my face!

A, you come to Alsace
to be near me.

I'll be reassured. We'll figure it out.

B, if you think you can do it, you'll
use the technique recommended to me.

I think it's essential
to avoid surgical intervention

which, even in Switzerland,
scares me.

If someone can give you the injections,
they're apparently highly effective.

Meanwhile, walking, running,
not lying down, etc.

until the moment in which... etc.

It's called Benzoginestril Number 5.

Two vials in a syringe per day
for four days

injected into the buttock muscle,
four injections of two vials.

On the ninth day, it should come.
If it's insufficient, start again.

If all goes well,
you won't need a curettage.

That's it. Decide.

My poor darling,
I am upset, disgusted, humiliated.

Forgive me, I am panicked.
Reply soon.

I'd like us to have a calm month,

in which I make amends to you
for this letter.

Jean-Jacques.

Destroy this letter.

C, how long have you been waiting
for your latest... season?

CAROLE'S BIRTH

D, I love you.

The surrogate father was a Spaniard.

His name was Juan Goytisolo.

He was a Spanish anti-Franco refugee,

very engaged politically,
a writer.

ALL THE MEN WHO MADE A MARK ON
MY MOTHER'S LIFE WERE NAMED JEAN.

Want me to remind you?

It's the story of a young girl,

who's desperately in love
with a man who doesn't love her.

Only at the end of the book
does she discover

that the reason he doesn't love her
is because he's gay.

It's been almost a year
since I started visiting the Arabs.

It took me
a few weeks to face facts.

I found my balance again
and grew closer to you.

But I also discovered
that I am totally, definitively,

and irreparably gay.

You'll have noticed that since that date
our relations have improved.

Although in a different way,
I began to love you more than before

and I've reached a kind of happiness
that I've never known before.

I felt relaxed,

happy to share my life with you,
and to have you and Carole beside me.

JUAN COMES HOME DRUNK
AFTER SCREWING A GUY TWICE

I am currently at an impasse.

I can no longer offer you anything,
promise you anything,

I dread your reaction,
and secretly also desire it.

JUAN SLEPT WITH AN IDIOT ARAB.

JUAN HAD A QUICKIE WITH AN ALGERIAN.

JUAN SLEPT WITH A TURK.

I know I'm destroying my happiness,
which is so strong, to be around you.

JUAN SLEEPS IN HIS OWN ROOM.

I'm scared to live without you.

There's your face, your capacity
for love, your eyes, your tenderness.

I've never been this close to anyone.

I have never gone as far in love
as I have with you.

From now on,

the success of our relationship
depended on our desire to stay together.

The illusion of facing a normal
relationship was shipwrecked

and we had to face the challenges
to create something new.

But would the love, the understanding,
the mutual respect that we had

be enough to maintain the strength
of the bonds we considered primordial?

WHEN THEY SAY I WRITE FICTION,
I THINK OF AFFLICTION

WHAT TO MAKE UP WHEN EVERYTHING
THAT MAKES ME DESPAIR IS ALIVE?

My only question is why?
What's with my mother and gays?

You? Genet? And Juan!

I don't know where her taste
for gays come from.

It's inexplicable.

Unless it's extreme masochism.

No, but she's a very moving person.

I think she had a difficult life.

Fortunately,
she had some kind of fantasy.

But no, she's someone
who had a hard life.

She was tragic.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

But I think that, deep down,
she was very happy at Gallimard

because she was placed there,

alongside people who were entirely...

more than tragic.

And basically,
she was in the right environment.

She wasn't isolated.

Yeah.

I'm going to read it again.

She says she was frigid...

Before my father.

And then, she was soon cheated on.

And this is a text
that she wrote after her operation.

I finally understood,
not the condition that she had...

...but that they had removed her uterus.

So, I asked a doctor

because the name she gave
was incoherent.

"No, no, no.
It was a kind of necrobiosis."

And the text is terrible
because she says,

"I ended up losing my uterus..."

"I ended up losing my uterus,

even if it isn't a sex organ
because I didn't use it."

"And it took me a week to recover."

"Thank God I had Juan..."

"And it so closely resembled..."

"...this bodily suicide..."

Yes, absolutely.

...that she had.

Listen, I always got the impression
there was something unresolved.

It's incredible.

FLO SAYS I USED TO HAVE A CRAZY VITALITY.
I'M CALMER NOW.

SHE TELLS ME TO RENOUNCE MY SEXUALITY
WHEN CAROLE HAS ONE.

IT'S A REAL FEELING OF GUILT...

There are letters from my adolescence
that she had transcribed.

- That means she went through my things.
- I don't like that.

No, but it's sexuality by proxy.

But the more we think about,
I don't know, Monique's trajectory,

the more we're obliged to think

her sexuality had an awful importance,
awful consequences...

Especially with me.

- I mean, this kind of fusional being...
- Totally.

She thinks I'm great. I can tell.

My mother's eyes
show this passion for me,

no matter what day,
what second it is.

Even from behind,
when I walk in front, it's an acid burn.

On Rue Montorgeuil, on Sundays,
she sells L'Humanité paper to passers-by.

I sit next to her
on the steps to a building,

and receive her happiness
like a shower of glitter.

She's crazy about me. I'm drunk.

During big dinners, on Rue Poissonnière,
all squeezed in tight,

I always feel my mother's gaze
on me intermittently

across the table.

I can tell she's proud
without even looking.

My seriousness, my gravity,

my mother's smile,
and her happiness again.

I am exceptional.

One Thursday, my mother notes,

"Definition of depression by Carole."

"Sadness that's long-lasting
if not overcome."

CAROLE TELLS ME ABOUT A REFLECTION
AROUND HER EDUCATION

"HER STORY IS THAT OF DESTRUCTURED
CHILDHOOD AND HELLO MASOCHISM."

THAT GENET WAS PERVERSE

AND SHE'S NOW DECIDED
NOT TO TALK ABOUT IT ANYMORE.

What gave me a little freshness,

was the insecurity.

Genet's inviting me to lunch
near his hotel.

I'm proud. So is Monique.

She's so happy
that he's interested in me.

We're the two people she loves
most in the world, more than Juan even.

Seeing Genet's the best thing
that could happen to me.

I can only benefit from his originality.

She thinks it's wonderful.
That it's an incredible chance.

And it's true. I feel like
he enjoys discovering me.

He laughs with me.

He makes me think in an unusual way.

He helps me to confirm my revolt
and not be like others.

He's happy in my presence.

I have gifts that Monique doesn't.

I give him back his taste for life.
I'm much funnier than her.

There are moments in which
he is as childish as I am.

We're capable of flipping the menu
outside a restaurant

or emptying a saltshaker into a vase.

I even had a fling
with his lover at the time, Jacky.

I stop by Genet's before leaving.

He still hasn't moved.

He's sat on the bed smoking.

I go to sip water from the tap
in the bathroom just behind him.

I don't put the light on
and leave the door open.

I get stabbed in the back.

"According to Jacky,
you suck at giving head, and you bite."

"I get myself off better."

Sat on the bed, cigar in hand,
wearing striped pyjamas,

he tells me
that I could never give him a hard-on.

I can. I'm sure of it.

He doesn't give up. "Yes. Go on, try."

He gets up,

and remains standing,
exquisitely frozen.

I touch his balls through his trousers.

"See? I was right.
No woman can do it for me."

- Are you Monique's only child?
- Yes.

- That's incredible.
- Why?

No, because when you have an only child,
I don't know, you...

It's rare to establish
relationships like that. Odd.

Why odd? There were two people
in the world that she adored

more than anything,
me and Jean.

Right.

So, for her,

that I could be "chosen" by Jean,

because when I was 11.

I'd skip class
to go to his hotel and chat.

It's true that...

I was somewhat lucky
to have great discussions with him

He soon started playing with me.

He challenged me.
"You can't do that."

And so, a little kid
with a bit of a soft brain...

is easily manipulated.

I've not managed to decipher everything
from the letters you sent my mom.

- You have terrible handwriting.
- Thank you!

But you warned my mother
on several occasions

that Genet was dangerous.

No, but he was crazy.
He was nuts.

A pervert.

Did you know that he hurt me?
Genet hurt me.

- Really?
- Yeah.

That's why
I'm asking you these questions.

But unfortunately,
he's someone I don't know.

Your mother was

- taken in by him.
- Yeah.

But the more she was hurt,
the more she loved people.

So, what can you do?

She got more than she bargained for
with Genet.

That's an understatement.

- And...
- She sacrificed herself.

She sacrificed herself.

She loved it.

All the people she knew,

it was the chance
to sacrifice herself for them.

To be their victim.

Not that people abuse,

but she offered herself as a victim,
and so we took advantage of that.

Yeah. She was submissive
to the people she loved.

Totally.

And so, it was great.

WE TALKED EVERYTHING OVER.

I'M WORRIED HE'S GETTING BORED
AND THINKS I'M STUPID.

JEAN: IS YOUR DAUGHTER STILL
SUCH A STUPID BITCH?

That's the ambiguity of Genet,
that is that he has...

he's this brilliant person
but at the same time very childish.

His round face,
his fits of laughter.

So, yes, he hated women.

So, when I saw him a lot,
I was quite young.

I was 11, 12,
so I was still androgynous.

I think he also really liked me

because I was a bit dark,
a bit Arabic looking.

And maybe that reminded him
of Abdallah,

the tightrope walker,
who had committed suicide by then.

But Abdallah is such
an intimate part of my life

that I'd prefer not to talk about him
on camera.

I would never forget Abdallah,

the tightrope walker I loved
and wanted to marry when I was ten.

Abdallah fell from the top of the rope,
without a harness.

Shortly after he got back up,
perhaps too quickly,

to repeat an act in front of Genet,

who, though sat down himself,
wanted him to go further and further.

Another fall.

Then the doctors' verdict.

Abdallah could no longer take any risks
in his thousand-sequined costume

under the big top of any circus.

He had become banal.

There's this word banal,
which is omnipresent with Genet.

The whispers I could hear from the
adults around me implied a tragedy,

like a chronicle announcing his suicide.

Everyone was worried.

And one day, he hanged himself.

No, I don't want
to talk about my pain like that.

- I'd like to make it part of a story.
- Yes.

I am still the child

of an intellectual world,
and I also wonder about that.

How did they leave me like that? Why?

That's where my pain lies.

And under no circumstances

do I bring you all into my story

to condone anything.

It's just because my question is
how could a kid like me,

with such potential,

have had behaviour
that was such a remarkable failure?

I am regularly haunted
by what I have experienced.

HOW COULD I NOW ADMIT THAT THE IDEA
OF SUICIDE CROSSES MY MIND?

IT WOULD EMBARRASS THE PERSON

AND MAKE THEM RESPONSIBLE
WHEN I POTENTIALLY DO IT.

Jorge Semprún was also important
to the making of this book.

You went to see him
to verify certain memories,

and he looked at you,
or so it feels,

with a kind of remorse,
saying that at one point you'd gone mad.

Mad?

- Not well.
- Why not?

When he looks at you...
I said mad, it's not that,

but we can tell that he remembers you
as a rebelling teenager,

who had started doing crazy things,

that is to say not worrying about having
any respect for yourself or your body.

At the same time,
wanting freedom,

to show you could be
away from your mother.

But at the same time,
you were, Carole Achache,

hurting yourself for a while.

I had no choice.

I'll begin my story from my 16th year.

Before, I was sleepwalking,
I racked up a huge step count.

And when it came to shaping my
personality, it was just a rough draft.

I won't talk about my family,
my social origins,

even if Mr Freud explained
how everything stems from there.

But in fact, until May '68,

my tribulations were entirely solitary,

except for a few disparate encounters
I made just to fuck.

And so, that notorious month of May

brought me into the dream,
into reality,

into my reality.

That month of May,
a wonderful 16th birthday gift!

It simply allowed me
not to disconnect from my revolt,

because the outside world
had my colour.

At that time, I expressed
my discomfort through politics.

Thinking about it,
my activism was bogus.

But I had managed
to find some theories,

that perfectly
corresponded to my laziness.

To do politics is
to not suffer the world.

I'm almost sure I've always wanted
to do it my way because of that month.

It's an authorisation that
society gave me from that day on.

I am really happy and proud
to have experienced a time like that.

I spent the next summer
flitting through anarchist groups.

No way could I go back to college.

I moved in with a guy
who was a year older than me.

I wanted to live, but I didn't know how.

My intellectual heritage didn't help
in that regard.

I got by on only moral references,
without letting myself go.

In a way, I came into life

knowing a bit about what not to do,
but nothing about what to do.

Everything was fixed in my mind.

Everything crystallised
in a perfect ennui,

in a strange sadness.

I began blowing up

because intuitively I could see
I was going nowhere.

After a year of austerity,
I separated from this boy

and encountered the world
of Parisian stoners.

The simple fact
that I started getting high

erased many of the intellectual limits
that I had set myself.

These were people
whose only problem

was being well
and, why not, happy in the same day.

They opened up this free world to me.

I was amazed.

I wanted to join their circle,
become integrated, accepted.

I wanted to prove I could have fun,
that I could be crazier than them.

And this manifested itself
in shooting up heroin.

Or by the money I gave them,
if they needed any.

A couple I admired
couldn't pay their rent.

The next day, by stealing and selling,
of course, some of Genet's scripts,

I brought them 600 francs.

Scam!

My God, how that could thrill me.

This word corresponded
to a way of reacting against society

by living royally at its expense.

Books of the Pleiades,
manuscripts, writers' letters,

even a little drawing by Giacometti.
I exhausted the archival capital.

I noticed that I had started
to relax physically.

At the same time,
I absolutely wanted to be accepted.

It's strange that I always have
this gratuitous guilt

that can, at any time,

make me feel rejected or watched.

Having sex was the only way
for me to gain the upper hand.

The number of times
I've resolved a situation by having sex.

But I couldn't really get used
to vegging out.

I forced myself to think like them
so I wouldn't be alone.

I was taking a lot of acid at the time.

I freaked out like crazy,

but I thought I had to get past
this freaking out by taking some more,

and then some more.

And now, I had only one desire.

To start making something of myself.

And then, I met Jean.

I liked him because he made me laugh.
I'd charmed him by cooking.

I sold my latest manuscripts,
Genet, Violette Leduc,

to catch a plane
that took us to New York.

We totally did not expect
the freezing cold of this city.

I was happy, it's true,
in the most modern country in the world.

I was happy because I was right.

This country would be mine.

Two hours later,
my mood had completely changed.

I was hungry. We were broke.

And worst of all,

I was starting to come down
from all the dope I'd taken.

He lived in a nearby hotel.

Around three or four in the morning,
this guy came back to bed.

The moron wanted to fuck me,
when I was dead tired.

And well, it was
ten times more tiring to refuse,

to explain to him
that maybe tomorrow I'd be better,

see things more clearly.

It was better for me
to spread my legs while dozing off.

The first sordid experience,
as soon as I'd arrived. Bam!

We started selling anything valuable
left in our suitcases.

I had a few sexual obligations
to our landlords, but it was cool.

I wandered around New York every day.
It was amazing.

I'd left Paris because I didn't manage
to achieve anything in that city.

We think about things too much in Paris.

I wanted a new world
in which I could build myself.

I wasn't at all concerned
about financial issues.

I'd go out every day
with $2 in my pocket.

It was enough for my strolls.

I was looking for encounters.

I had hope in an underground

that had been simmering
in the US for two years.

My revolt has been,
and always will be, I hope,

the fact that the world of work
makes people's daily lives sordid.

But when it comes to work,

there's nobody more sordid
than an American.

I wasn't even looking out for myself.

Looking for work
would've been shameful to me.

Roselyne suggested
I get away from this sordidness

and go and pig out.

The owner of a French restaurant
invited us there.

She warned me
he was a guy of little interest.

He was a man in his fifties.

Typical nouveau riche,
happy with himself.

We went to his table.

We had no interest
in the conversation.

I was only thinking
of eating and drinking.

It was Roselyne who took care
of the fair play side.

A kind of numbness pervaded me
due to an excellent wine.

I became lascivious,
oblivious to the outside.

My body was warming up from
the calories it had long been lacking.

The end of the meal was approaching.

At one point in the conversation,
I was picking up on

some "Why don't we head
to my studio?" chat.

And that was addressed to me
from the boss.

Basically, I was fine.

For me, any experience
was to be taken.

And I was a girl who, for
a very long time, could never say no.

And the mixture of all the alcohol

had made me rather indifferent
to my prejudices.

The boss stood up
to work out the final details.

At that point,
Roselyne told me something like,

"Don't ask him for any money upfront.
He'll give you $20 at the end anyway."

And that sentence disappeared

in my woozy state.

We went to the studio
opposite the restaurant.

Things went completely normally,

except there was no looking
for a romantic connection.

But that didn't bother me

since it was, unfortunately,
not the first time

I'd fucked without making
a real human connection.

Half an hour later, it was over.

I know that I came.

A quick wash, get dressed.

And he did indeed give me $20.

Roselyne thought that I had guts,

that she'd found her first time
more difficult.

The fog in my head persisted.

We were walking in Manhattan.
The air was quite cool.

And I was starting to unwind.

She suggested we spend
the afternoon together

as there was an unexpected opportunity
to earn $100 each.

Two men on a business trip.

And suddenly,
this lump rose in my throat.

I was completely disgusted with myself.

I realised that
I had sold myself morally.

Physically, I didn't care.

But all my theories, my rebellion

were cancelled out
by what I'd just done.

Selling myself wasn't the problem.

But I had just sullied

the one act
in which I thought I was free.

I had just compromised myself
with this world that I hated.

In just two hours,

I had erased all of my violence,
all of my refusal.

Jean told me

that this was the price
we had to pay for our freedom,

that the outlandish party side,

the need for unlimited happiness,
came at a high cost.

"The world is ugly, and life is hard."
That's what he says.

And that ultimately,
it was a very short time to spend

to allow you to live afterwards.

I shouldn't dream.

If we wanted

to get something
out of this society to live well,

it had to be done.

That I have no illusions.

It's a precondition
to being able to live freely.

Effectively, I had no choice.

I never asked myself
how I would manage financially.

I let myself live.

I also had this economic ease
thanks to my mother,

who took care of all my needs.

I was entering a strange reality,

that of lies,

of pure compromise and,
in a way, of deep disillusionment.

And I went all the way.
I became a very good prostitute.

The process was simple.

Go into the best hotel, ask at
reception if Mr so-and-so was there,

making a shitty face
when given an obviously negative answer,

and finally waiting patiently

in a chair with a clear view
of all the comings and goings.

Within half an hour, I'd find someone.

I experienced a real dichotomy.

I had several lives,
and I was unable to reconcile them.

But in the end,

it was impossible for me
not to incorporate my life as a whore

into my life
as the daughter of intellectuals.

If I analyse
my attitude during those years,

I can see that I was pursuing
a suicidal approach.

I'M DOING THE TERRACE UP. PETUNIAS.
NO, CAROLE NOT WHORE LIKE JEAN SAYS.

CAROLE TELLS US THERE'S NO POINT
SLEEPING AROUND TO BECOME AN ACTRESS

WHEN YOU CAN MAKE MONEY
BY SLEEPING AROUND.

I know some details,
but not if they're...

Well?

Well, I don't know,
it's what was said at the time.

- I hesitate to tell you, maybe.
- No, no.

That Genet pushed you
into working the streets.

Oh, no. No.

That's funny. Why...

Someone told me at the time...

I did it eventually.

- Yes.
- But it's odd. It's unbelievable.

I did do it, but later.
I think that...

And Genet
had nothing to do with it?

No, but he was complicit in my relationship
with Jacky starting at too young an age.

- Really.
- Yes.

My mother was also somewhat complicit
because I was only 11, 12, 13.

So, in my opinion, that's premature.

And... But this thing is funny.

The noise was carrying, anyway.

I prostituted myself.

- Which isn't a great thing to do.
- No.

- There we go.
- Yeah.

But I really thought
that it was the work of Jean Genet.

Listen, you wouldn't have done it
if Jean hadn't been around.

Well, I don't know...

I totally agree.

Why are you saying that?
I totally agree, but it's...

Because he had a taste
for challenging people,

for challenging them,

pushing them as far as he could
into their "contradictions",

which were his fantasies.

In this sense, he pushed Abdallah
to the extent he pushed him.

He pushed Jacky.

He broke people doing it,
throughout his life.

He broke me
when I was a kid really.

It's one of the reasons
I went off the rails.

- Yes, of course.
- Right.

Could my mother have been aware of it?

That Genet would've put me...
I mean, it's serious.

I don't know.
I can't say for sure really.

No, it didn't happen directly,
but there were...

by dint of highlighting
theft, delinquency, and all that.

I didn't know what to do but that.

- I know. He was a manipulator too.
- Totally.

But why did my mother leave me
in his hands?

It must've been her passion for Genet.
She would've agreed to anything.

- Really, anything. It's crazy.
- Yeah.

So, it's my ambivalence.

It's the grudge I hold against Genet.
I mean, he's disgusting.

- Yeah, that's for sure...
- Right.

And at the same time,
I know that I had...

that I may have a form of intelligence
that was shaped by Jean.

- Yes.
- Yes, right.

And it's true
that in the middle of all this,

my mother plays an odd role.

Yes, the mother-daughter relationship
in these cases is...

Yes, this one's staggering.

- Yeah.
- It is.

"TO LIVE IS TO SURVIVE A DEAD CHILD."
JEAN GENET

FINISH FLAGYL. START AMPHOCYCLINE.
LAMB WITH BEANS. I FART ALL NIGHT.

I was not understood.

They were writers,
male or female,

I always put men before women
because I love them.

That's how it is. It's carnal.

They enter me.
I can feel them filling me.

It doesn't last long.

It last so little time

that I haven't continued
getting filled up like that.

It reminded me too much
of my emptiness.

It's not hard for me
to tell myself right now

that I'm an eternally incapable
piece of shit.

Four, three, two, one.

François Mitterrand's been elected
President of France.

SILENCE = DEATH

GENET ABOUT CAROLE THE OTHER DAY:

SHE'S LIKE POLICE CARS,
SHE'S GOING UNDERCOVER

Two, three...

Happy birthday

Happy birthday, dear Mona

Happy birthday to you

It's no coincidence that I stayed with
the father of my children for 30 years.

Finding a balance
by tidying up my house,

sweeping away so much dust.

This need for
the outside to be organised,

because I feel
so disfigured inside,

referring to the severity in opposition
to anything I have experienced.

Have I been too conformist in appearance
to compensate for my lack of references?

Yes, one day, you caught your finger.
You really hurt yourself.

You cried. Oops!

Because you should just
pull a drawer out like this.

Don't put your hands like this.
Take the handle.

There you go. Well done! You got it.

That's how you have to do it
so you won't hurt yourself.

Do you think conformism
is a nasty disease?

It's a miserable disease.

Why is it a miserable disease?

Because it prevents you from existing.

People who are truly conformist
have not lived.

Possessions make one conformist,
the accumulation of goods, of wealth.

Throughout life, we get attached
to objects, memories, photos.

It's not malicious.
You must be able to go without.

- But you don't here. There are...
- Of course there are.

- But the day there no longer is...
- It won't matter?

There's a wonderful Cocteau quote
I used in one of my books,

"What would you take
if your house were burning? The fire."

- Nice.
- Very nice.

I'll continue the comic book.

My mother made a lot of noise
when drinking her morning tea.

Oh, I thought we were
taking a quick break.

No.

She'd hold her sip in her mouth,
and then swallow.

- I hated that noise.
- So, why recreate it?

Happy birthday to you

MONA HAS ECZEMA AGAIN.

CAROLE: THAT'S HER PROBLEM.

You often told me an anecdote
that you were strangely proud of.

You were one.

I laid you down on your changing table
to change your nappy.

I confused the bottle of saline solution
with 90% alcohol and put it in your eyes.

You started screaming.

When I realised my mistake,

I took the bottle of alcohol
and put some in my eyes too.

To feel the same pain you did.

Why this transmission of pain?

You soon told me
that your mother had been gang raped

during a bullfight
on the streets of Pamplona.

This story is part of my childhood.

From your mouth, Pamplona
sounded like a mythological tale.

Just like Hera throwing Hephaestus
out of the window because of her ugliness,

there was Penelope, who undid at night
what she had woven by day,

and Momo, who was gang raped

during a bullfight
on the streets of Pamplona.

From a young age,
this singsongy word

mixed with verbose images
of a bloodied bull,

young boys assaulting my young
grandmother in Spanish alleyways,

Left strange
and romantic impressions on me.

The spectre of the abuse you suffered
hung over my childhood

in a more insidious way,
so much so that I now realise

I grew up with the unspoken idea
it would happen to me.

That it always happened.

And that it wasn't really a tragedy,
but an inevitability.

An inevitable initiatory rite.

From my childhood,
I've retained the happy memory

of our stays in Juan's Marrakech house,
where he spends 50% of his time.

At 13, I found out
about Juan's homosexuality

and I better understood who Amir is.
Amir who I've known forever,

who lives in the house
with his brother and his family.

JUAN LIVES LIKE A SULTAN.
AMIR DREAM SLAVE.

THE WOMEN PEEL AND SWEEP.

In the heart of the medina,
this timeless happiness

was inherent in Amir's servitude for
Juan and, by extension, for us.

I TRIED TO EXPLAIN
MY MARRAKECH TORMENT TO JUAN.

Obviously, I loved this Moroccan part
of my childhood.

I loved my grandfather,
and vice versa.

But at 14, during one
of our trips to Morocco,

Amir started coming into my room
every night, and I was unable to say no.

I tell you about it, you collapse

and tell me that you knew
it would happen to me,

that it had happened to you too.

As women are cursed in our family.

Later, Juan chose the comfort of
maintaining his Moroccan life with Amir

to the detriment
of my confessions,

suggesting I envelop
myself in your silence.

TRY NOW TO FORGET

I don't forget and I cut ties with Juan
on behalf of those he maintains with Amir.

But I soon discover you're reproducing
the ambiguities of your own mother.

You're unable to sacrifice the privilege
of your relationship with Juan

due to the abuse
your daughter suffered.

Mona, you told Juan
some home truths,

so you liberated
yourself somewhat, right?

And haven't I, a former whore,
come a long way?

You find my contact
with Juan despicable.

As if I were denying
what happened to you.

I told you that you shouldn't
confuse Amir with Juan.

But actually, I was speechless again

because Juan's attitude
towards you is zero.

And I am in the middle,
in my eternal silence,

having given all my strength
to structuring my children.

And I am in the middle,
having had a past

that all three of mine dismissed;

my dad, my mom, and Juan.

A sinister trinity
that prevented me from causing a ruckus.

I'm the middle
and I am fed up with being nothing.

A piece of shit in your eyes.

A good-for-nothing
who collaborated with the enemy.

And I'm in the middle,
having been subjected to events

that I consider more serious
than those you've experienced.

It is not a matter of competition,

nor of lesser evil,

but you are less alone than I was
when faced with three crazy people,

Juan, my father and my mother.

Why? Why did I not condemn them
as you do me?

Why did they kill me?

I am a ridiculous, grotesque person.

I am an eternal piece of shit

in the eyes of those
who are meant to be my parents,

in the eyes of my daughter.

You find me unworthy
for having collaborated with the enemy.

For saying, during a dinner you attended,
that Juan was a good person.

Yes,

I do demonstrate ambivalence
and ambiguity.

I really do think

that Juan is both a good person
and a swine, as you say.

I really do think

that my mother is both a swine
and a good person,

and that my father is both a swine
and a good person.

And I am the fruit of this trinity,

therefore a mistake.

I cannot fix what Amir did to you.

I cannot fix

the resentment you are holding for me.

And I am in the middle.

I want to cut out my tongue

to force myself to be silent,

which would make me die,

like a dehydrated flower.

I've got you by the chin.
You've got me by the chin.

The first to laugh
gets a tap on the shin!

Ah no, I just remembered.

You wanted...
Damn, I heard an indication.

I don't know
if you gave it to me directly or...

You wanted me
to do something special, right?

Damn, no.
I was dreaming, forget it.

Whatever!

Yeah, the photos.

- My mum and her mum.
- My grandma and her mum.

- You and your mum.
- Your mum's mum and her mum.

- Her mum's mum.
- Her mum's mum's mum.

- Her mum's mum's mum.
- Me, you. Her mom's mum.

Her mum's mum's mum.

- Her mum's mum's mum.
- You.

- And her mum's mum's mum.
- You.

My problem today is
that I don't fit in there at all.

I don't exist there.

- How so?
- I don't exist there.

We're talking about Juan,
about Genet, about Semprún, all that.

I feel like
I was swept along in all this.

I am not a powerful man

who overpowered Carole.

I am not that.
At least, I don't think I am.

Yet she still spent 33 years
of her life with me, so over half.

But I, if you like, was actually absent.

I went through all this without...

without playing my role.

It reminds me
of my own cowardice, it's true.

I know.

In your family, men pass,
and God knows if they're important.

First, they make children.

But it's really something

that you wrote,
mother to daughter, mother to daughter,

through the generations.

For now, only my mother
and I wrote about it.

And I hope to have put an end
to precisely this kind of matriarchy

that makes men somewhat secondary.

I've been writing for days.

Discipline of isolation,
alongside the truth of my loneliness.

No doubt I'm responsible for it,

but I vowed not to complain
in these notebooks.

I just read a Duras quote online.

She says, "Only the idea of two things
can free me from myself,

the idea of suicide
and the idea of writing."

The bitch, she holds the key.

I still don't have it. At my age.

Yes, but no one in her family
wrote before her.

Around me, they did.

That's where censorship
or the complex lies.

INTERESTING, BUT...

WE'RE SORRY...

A RATHER VAGUE STORY...

WEAKEST...

WITH REGRET...

MISSED THE POINT...

UNFORTUNATELY...

THIS BOOK HAS NO...

UNFORTUNATELY...

UNFORTUNATELY...

WITH MY REGRET AND CONSIDERATION...

Carole, with regards to your book,

you told me the other day
you reread it and found it crap.

Don't doubt yourself.

For 18 months,
I've been preparing for my retirement.

I'm flabbergasted,

bewildered by the number
of unsuccessful books and screenplays.

Some perhaps due to injustice,
but others were downright bad, immature.

I am not bitter
about all those that did not succeed.

It is what made me,
or what undid me, I don't know,

but it's what made me who I am.

My life may seem
like a series of failures.

I don't see it that way.

If I had to do it all again,
I think I would.

I regret only one thing;

the incredible lack of self-confidence
that has pervaded my life

and, to be honest, still does.

I don't want you to suffer that.

As you would be wrong to,
like I was wrong.

I do not believe in you blindly.
You amaze me daily.

I'm glad to see you don't react like me.
I don't want to weigh you down.

When I am stuck because of you,
it's no big deal.

But if anything's bothering you,
it makes me sick.

MONUMENTAL BLOW WITH REGARDS TO MY WORK.

ALMOST WANT TO DIE (NOT LIVE ANYMORE).

BLUE BLUE DEPRESSED. IT'S HARD TO WRITE.
EASIER THAN TO DIE.

SHE CAN'T ANYMORE.
IT'S RIGHT HERE ON PAPER.

She's taking more and more medication.

It's terrible. A deterioration.

It's awful. It's really awful.

She's let herself...

SHE CAN'T TAKE ANYMORE.

MY DEATH WOULD HAVE NO MORE MEANING
THAN MY LIFE... I WANT TO DIE.

Her whole life,
your mother wrote about wanting to die.

Just like you.

Like her, you inherited ownership
of the building we all lived in,

and you sold it.

You put everything
into the stock market.

It collapsed,
and you lost everything.

I am responsible for my solitude.
It is unbearable.

What keeps me alive? Writing.
What a luxury!

I will hold on to this luxury.
It is all I have left.

I have never cared
about being like other people.

Foresighted, efficient, employees,

sowing a fruitful past,
retirement points,

enriching accumulations
in every sense of the word,

maintaining relationships, affinities.

I don't know how to play the game well.
That excites me.

I'm a Penelope,

who never stops questioning the
day before, unravelling every second.

Suddenly, no proof
of what I'd thought to build up

until proof came through the attitude
of my children fleeing from me.

Even my love for them is not credible.

I'm looking for a job at the moment.
Do you have anything?

In what field?

Anything, because, you know... worries.

Yeah.

What are you into?

I don't know.
I can write. I can take photos.

But actually, I'm always beside...
I've never really...

So, I've gotten by so far,
but I don't really have a job.

When you found it,
what kind was it?

I was a set photographer.

I was a ghost writer.

- But I've always done what I wanted.
- Yeah!

I trust you on that!

Then I was raising my kids.

- How old are they?
- They're 25 and 30.

And you have
a good relationship?

They've not killed you yet,
that's not bad!

- Not yet, but they want to sometimes.
- Yes, that's normal.

I think about what Stevenson said
about a man who wrote

and was independently wealthy
due to an inheritance.

He knew that by buying a cigar, he
was shaving a few minutes of his life,

until the day he'd have none left.

Afterwards, he knew
that he would commit suicide.

I only read a few sentences
two years ago, I think.

And I wonder if this bet
may be the right one.

It's called being fed up.

And one night,
from your large bookcase,

you hanged yourself.