Original subtitles

DELETED AND ALTERNATIVE SCENES

In the screenplay, this scene was supposed to be at the beginning ofthe film...

at the start of the school year.

The point of it was to show...

that there was construction being done...

that they were behind, and needed to reinforce the crew.

It also allowed us to show Mécir's mother...

as one of the school's cleaning women...

who, having heard this information, would talk to her son about it.

-Director! -Ah, there you are.

The work has fallen behind considerably.

It was too short a time.

And then, it was August 15!

My dear friend, August 15 happens every year.

The first day of school, too.

Your crew is short on workers. It will take months at this rate!

Because for you, the priest can't welcome his students in the new oratory.

It will be done quickly. I assure you. I will reinforce the crew...

so that your students are not bothered by the construction.

That's nice!

We are already...

bothered.

But in the end, in the film...

this was the only scene where none of the six young characters appeared...

unlike all the other scenes.

So lended up taking it out. Regretfully.

Not so much because of it's content...

but mostly because Dominique Besnehard played the architect...

and I really wanted Dominique in the film.

First, because Dominique really encouraged me to make it.

He counseled me and supported me.

But mostly he helped me to not bend...

and to not lose my determination in the difficult moments...

especially when I was looking for financing.

In fact, without the unwavering support...

of France 2 Cinema and that of Dominique...

I would have had a very hard time making the film.

In it's present form, anyway.

-Did you bring your certificate? -No, that's okay.

-You already spoke to him, he agreed. -You should have.

Talk about a diploma!

-Especially here. -Come. There he is.

That's not a sequence, but just a shot to begin the scene...

where Mécir's mother introduces him to the crew boss.

I really liked the idea that Mecir is starting school, too, in his own way.

and that his mother would talk about his painting certificate...

amidst all these university graduates.

But it slowed down the action...

and I preferred to start off directly with his hiring...

by the crew boss, the foreman.

Thierry, come here, please?

Can you start him painting?

Go get changed in the back.

ok3Y-

That, too, was just the beginning of a sequence, that ofthe breakfast...

at Louis-Arnault's parents.

I liked that Emeline was walking in the park, petting the horses...

and then watching her walk from behind.

It's a little homage to one ofmy favorite directors...

Michelangelo Antonioni.

But these shots gave too much ofan opulent feeling...

to define the parents’ situation, to situate their house.

Also, I preferred to start off directly with Louis-AresenauIt's arrival.

We got in late.

Yes. We heard you.

I hope we didn't make too much noise.

No, don't worry, Emeline, we weren't sleeping.

This scene would have been at about the middle ofthe film.

While preparing his bag to go to his water polo practice...

Louis-Arnault notices he is missing underwear and gets suspicious.

We found it more important...

that we don't know about Louis-Arnault noticing his underwear's theft...

and that he suspects Paul.

That would have emphasized the idea that he was playing with him deliberately...

to see how far Paul would go.

It's much more intense, when, at the end...

he bitterly reveals it.

You weren't happyjust stealing my underwear, you had to sleep with that!

Here is another scene which doesn't include any of the six principal characters.

It was one ofthe film's dream sequences...

but with a more provocative side.

As predicted, America closed well yesterday, with an increase...

in the markets of 3% thanks to good economic statistics.

We stayed on the upswing in Europe, even without the indications...

...0,34, London, +5%, a little drop in Brussels, -0.8%...

and in Zurich, -0. 6%. So a little unstable in Europe....

Nevertheless, we know how to use our strengths, even...

Fight workers

Leave your machines

Get out, proletariat

March and march

Get ready for the struggle

Unfurl the flag Charge the weapons

In cadenced step For the assault, charge

We must conquer the world

Proletariat, stand up

But this scene couldn't find its place, it was too out of touch...

and was too different from the rest ofthe film.

In the end, so as not to completely abandon this gap between dream and reality...

I still used the final shot...

of the workers symbolically walking towards the Don Quixote statue...

by putting it at the end of the director's speech.

But the director, worried about your studies...

I hope to become for you a passer, who will allow you....

It amused me to deride the director's conquering speech....

Ialso wanted to really show the difference in class.

Like a parable on leaders’ cynicism...

on the finality of their speculations, and this...

within a concept that, it seems to me, is forgotten today.

Never forget our school motto....

And, in a musical counterpoint. another revolutionary song...

El Pueblo Unido.

But because, obviously, I couldn't use the song...

because the voices would have drowned out the text...

I then asked Alice Taglioni...

to play it on the piano.

As well as being a wonderful actress...

Alice is also a very talented pianist.

It's also this music that I put over Mécir's dream.

This is not cut scenes, but scenes that are actually in the film.

I just wanted to try a little experiment...

by asking the lovely Alice Taglioni to read two extracts...

of my interview from the press release.

To see what kind ofresonance it would take on...

hoping, ofcourse, to not alter the original slant of the scenes.

"When I was a film student," said Robert Salis...

''I loved taking classes given by the brilliant Sege Daney.

"We were a small group who often found ourselves with him...

"around a coffee table prolonging the pleasure of his classes.

"One day, he brought up...

"this subject in such ajust way that it still resonates in all its logic.

Louis-Arnault?

"I can't convey the finesse andjudicial development of his analysis...

"but he estimated, in fact...

"that if the majority ofsocieties had...

"rejected and condemned homosexuality...

"it is because they, themselves, were, in fact, homosexual.

"In the sense that all the social structures...

"were conceived, established, legitimized by men, in favor ofmen...

"to preserve the privileges that they had granted themselves...

"in order to give themselves a supremacy through which women...

"were just trophies in their service and relegated to the background.

"It has only been a few decades since women started fighting...

"to reclaim, express, and obtain their equality with men.

"And it still revolts me to see how women are treated...

"in many countries and put under the male yoke.

"Socially, men have stolen women '5 voices...

"and have spoken for them...

"by imposing social structure based on an assumed misogyny.

"And if homosexuals have in fact been so forcefully rejected...

"it is because they dared...

"to behave like women by loving and sleeping with other men...

"thus transgressing the ancient taboo...

"of a homosexual society who dares not speak it's name...

"in order to perpetuate itself and deceive.

"It is not because PACS exists...

"or that there are homosexual characters in TV movies...

"that homosexuality is now included.

"It is tolerated or admitted in most cases, but included, Idoubt it.

"Just saying.’ ‘This person is a homosexual’...

"is not only announcing an information, but it is also and mostly...

"a way to pronounce an insidious judgment on him.

"You only have to look at homophobic arguments or visions...

"which exist in the collective unconscious.

"Those inept questions which still carry all that mockery.

"'Who creates man? Who creates woman? Which one is active or passive?’

"You will notice that when a man...

"wants to insult another in a strong way, he feminizes his insults.’

"fairy, fag, sissy.

"As if for him calling a man a woman...

"is the best way to put him down.

"I find the moral regression that is gaining territory...

"very dangerous...

"here and elsewhere.

"How desire can travel from one being to another, one body to another...

''while ignoring the sexual boundaries of youth...

who tries to live with this romantic crisscrosses. "

-How are you? You coming? -I'll wait there.

Come on, we're used to it.

-Sure? -Yes.

"Desire has no gender.

"At least, sexual, erotic and romantic preferences...

"change when the pressure of frustrations and inhibitions is lifted.

"This puts into question the power ofan upbringing which, from childhood,

"regiments, directs, and controls desire...

"and dictates laws on how to use it."

"What men fear...

"is not so much the act with another man...

"to one day have this experience.

"But rather the fear of being called and labeled a homosexual.

"Of being treated like a fag or to think ofyourself like that.

"The proof is the number of married men with wives, homes, children...

"who have a double life or regular affairs or flings...

"with other men or transsexuals...

"as long as it stays a secret.

"A constant dominance of the verb that propels the law in question.

"A law, in the biblical sense of the term...

"that forces them to deny, suppress...

"or feel guilt about their desires if they're outside of the norm.

"What is actually perverse...

"is the power of the desire to fit the mold.

"That insidious desire for conformity...

"that destroys and deforms the personality.

"The need to be completely normal at any cost...

"is the greatest perversion.

"To paraphrase George Bataillex Perversion is the norm.

"Clearly, it's not about proselytizing...

"or confusing desires and urges by allowing them to overtake you.

"Let's just say that in all mutually consensual experiences...

"whether the aim is to reach self-fulfillment and sexual gratification...

"or to simply satisfy curiosity...

"other erotic territories deserve to be explored without shame...

"or guilt. This hardly ever happens.

"A man who only goes for men, depriving himself of women...

''would be missing out as much as a man who only goes for women...

"and ignores the lure ofmasculine pleasure on the pretext...

"that society would disapprove.

"But this is equally valid...

"for women and their relationship with men."