Page 79 - Metropolis Magazine nº115

was on to writing the screenplay: born! He was present in the film didn't include the living figure of
initially, I wrote the screenplay but not physically, which made Gauguin, and from there, to make
very much centred on the figure it much more attractive and the movie from the sensations,
of Gauguin, and I presented him seductive for us to imagine what from the others, from the voices
and thought that I would need Gauguin could be like because of those who had lived with him.
to find an actor for the role of that allows everyone—you, me,
the painter. Which caused me and each viewer—to make their The theme of the relationship
a problem: which actor? Which own character. It's a character so between the colonizers—in
figure? Anything I could think full of stigmas, constructions, this case, the French—and
of seemed ridiculous; it could and theories that, throughout the the colonized—the natives of
be a stereotype, and it could 20th century, people have been Tahiti—is very present, right
be reductive. Finally, by off- making up. It's so full of that! from the opening of the film:
centering the movie to Victor By physically eliminating the July 14—France's national
Segalen's perspective, the idea was figure of the French painter, we've day—is celebrated, the day
generated when Claudia Bottino gained a huge amount of space Victor Segalen arrived in the
entered the process, already at a and allowed everyone to build archipelago. The celebration
rather advanced stage of writing, their own perspective, based on is staged with the French
to give it a new and fresh look. small things and small elements. colonizers "civilizing" the
In one day, the idea of making That's how the script came to natives in French culture,
the famous artist disappear was life! To find a narrative line that from the French anthem to

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