One of the finest female ensembles in recent years can be found in Bertrand Bonello’s 2011 masterwork, “House of Pleasures,” originally titled “L’Apollonide” in France, the name of the Parisian brothel where nearly every scene in the film takes place. “In a way, Bonello’s film is about the end of an era in turn-of-the-century France, yet it also emerges as transcendently relevant to any era,” I wrote at HollywoodChicago.com when the film was released on DVD twelve years ago. “By portraying the brothel in a way that is both straightforward and impressionistic, enigmatic and intimate, perceptive and poetic, Bonello has truly made a movie for the ages.” Noémie Lvovsky plays the bordello’s Madam, Marie-France, while other principle members of the cast include Céline Sallette, Alice Barnole, Hafsa Herzi, Jasmine Trinca, future “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” star Adèle Haenel and in her memorable feature film debut, Iliana Zabeth.
Zabeth deftly inhabits the role of Pauline, the youngest and newest employee at L’Apollonide, who enters the world of prostitution seeking freedom and in some ways mirrors the audience’s perspective as she observes firsthand the tragedy and fierce strength underlying the women’s glamorous and submissive personas. With Bonello’s latest acclaimed film, “The Beast,” arriving in U.S. theaters this month, the Criterion Channel began streaming two of the director’s most provocative pictures, including “House of Pleasures.” I had the great privilege and joy of recently interviewing Zabeth via Zoom from her home in Paris for Cinema Femme about her memories of making the film, her thoughts regarding the #MeToo movement in Paris and the vitality of intimacy coordinators.
What first drew you to acting?
As a kid, theatre was a hobby that I did outside of school. I was ten years old when I acted in my first film, “L’adoption,” directed by Alain-Paul Mallard, who was from La Fémis, a school of cinema in Paris. It was a great experience because the other young actress, Selma El Mouissi, and I were the lead actors, so we got to be on the shoot all along. I learned so much that summer, and I did some other short films after that. But I was a very introverted teenager, so around age 15, I wasn’t feeling like auditioning anymore. I was in art school and had turned 18 when a friend of mine told me that she was auditioning for a film called “L’Apollonide.” The subject of the movie appealed to me because it was something that I knew existed but was mysterious and fascinating, and I really did not know anything about it. Even the title in itself was so intriguing and felt like an invitation to imagine and wonder about a place from the past.
Since childhood, shooting a movie was a parenthetical magic moment that gave me an opportunity to escape, and be a part of something I could call my own and kind of keep to myself, apart from my parents. It felt really freeing for me. So when I heard about this project, I suddenly had the desire to be on a film set again, first because I was attracted and intrigued by the subject of the movie, but also because at this moment in my life, at 18, I really yearned for leaving the nest. By going on set, I was returning to a familiar place and situation that I loved, while at the same time, totally rediscovering it.
There is an elegance to the interior world of the film, with its high society clients, that makes the final jump to the prostitutes on the streets in modern life jarring, and yet somehow fitting.
Right. We see how the elegance is a façade, and that the women in the fancy brothel are also living in poor conditions.
Were you familiar with Bertrand’s work prior to auditioning for this film?
I did not know who Bertrand Bonello was when I first learned about the project, so prior to going in for the audition, I saw his film, “On War,” with Mathieu Amalric. That film had a strange and fascinating subject. I love when a movie can open new doors in the mind like that. I loved the scene where Mathieu is stuck in a casket. It is so eerie and funny at the same time. I also loved how it was filmed, in a calm and composed way, respecting the time that it took for events to unfold, as if he were filming a documentary. I knew after watching this film that “L’Apollonide” would be realized in an interesting way. My first audition was done with actress Joanna Grudzinska, who is a director and also appears in the film. It was after they called me back that I first met Bertrand. He immediately struck me as nice, agreeable and attentive.
Was it important for him to help foster a sense of community among the cast?
That’s a good question because although I had the chance to meet the other cast members a few times prior to filming, it was on the set where we really got to know each other. We were always together in our costumes, waiting to do our scenes together in a really good atmosphere. It put us in the same mental state of laughing together in our backstage area, being there for each other and discovering each other. Then when the moment came to present ourselves for the show, we put on the mask of our characters, just as our characters were putting on a mask to do their jobs. The girls were all so fun and nice to be around. They had so many different personalities, and it was really amazing and inspiring for me to meet them all together. Céline Sallette was so hardworking and impressive, but so fun to be around. She always was cracking me up, and sometimes having all of us girls in uncontrollable laughter between takes.
The first time that I met all of them was at Bertrand’s place. I was the youngest of them all and didn’t know anyone. I can still picture the first time I saw them all sitting in Bertrand’s living room. I was so shy that I couldn’t say a word during that night. They were all so beautiful and seemed so self-confident. Soon after, my co-star Hafsia Herzi took me under her wing and was very protective of me because I was younger. She wasn’t that much older than me, but she already had much more experience in the cinema. She was always giving me advice for life in general, and how to stand up for yourself in the cinema industry. There was such a strong force about her. She was a real little mom to me, always sharing her experiences and what lessons she learned from them.
Did you have a lot of freedom in how you approached the character of Pauline?
I think Bertrand really left it up to us in terms of how we approached our characters. He never said, “The character is this way,” or, “Act this way.” His input would often consist of a few words, spoken softly in a given moment, like, “The same, but just a bit more sad,” or, “Think about this or that during the scene.” I think he was more interested in capturing some essence of us that we weren’t entirely conscious of. I felt like he was trustful of his actors as well as his crew, so he never was controlling. There was a gesture that he had that represents his spirit well. With his right hand open, he would sway it in our direction, signaling to us that we could start when we wished, saying, “Quand tu veux,” or, “When you want.”
Yet whenever we had a question about anything, he was very specific in his answer. Before filming, he gave us a book to read by Laure Adler, Les maisons closes: 1830-1930, because he wanted us to understand the historical background and details of the events that take place in the film, such as what the daily routine would be for these women. With Pauline, I didn’t really try to build a character. I just understood how she felt because I felt the same way going into this project. I did not know not much about it, but I knew that I wanted to be there.
One of the most memorable exchanges in the film occurs when Marie-France is surprised by Pauline’s belief that she would find “freedom” by working in a house of tolerance. Did you feel a sense of freedom while acting in this film?
Yeah, I felt the same as her, in a way. It was the freedom of having my own thing and escaping my everyday life at home with my parents. I was surrounded by something that was built to reflect things that had actually occurred, and I got to be a part of it. There was so much for me to learn on the set, so I was learning all the time. It really felt like a bubble, but paradoxically felt like I got to be in the outside world, doing what I want and desire to do. My parents were supportive of me pursuing acting, since they had brought me up in a home where art was really the center of everything. I was very lucky to be surrounded by so much art throughout my youth.
Is there anyone in the arts whom you’ve looked up to over the years?
When I was really little, around 6 or 7 years old, I dreamed of being an artist who would make things with my hands. And it never quit in me. I still feel very grey if I don’t create with my hands or play the guitar. But in terms of my relationship with cinema, the first person who struck me as a kid in a movie was Brigitte Fossey in “Forbidden Games” by René Clément. Every time I went to my grandmother’s house, I watched it over and over on replay. I was so fascinated by this movie and the performance of this very young actress who was around my age. It didn’t occur to me that I wanted to act while watching it. I was simply obsessed with her, her character, and the story. The music also made me want to pick a guitar for first time.
It all became ingrained in my mind for so long. The subject of the film was so captivating to me as well because it dealt with death and grieving, and when you see a movie like that at a young age, it really expands your mind in meaningful ways. Around age 12, I got into the folk music of Nick Drake, and that’s when I really fell in love with playing guitar. He’s one of the people I’ve looked up to the most in my life. Right now, I just can’t get Benny Safdie’s acting in “The Curse” out of my head. It’s something I’ve never seen before, the layers of his character are insane. He is such a genius, and I loved the show, being a fan of his work as well as that of his brother Joshua and Nathan Fielder for many years. It’s my biggest dream in life to work with one of them one day.
The work of cinematographer Josée Deshaies and costume designer Anaïs Romand play such key roles in creating the atmosphere throughout “House of Pleasures.”
The costumes were really something. After each of us was cast, the first thing we had to do was go see Anaïs so that she could get our measurements. Every one of our corsets was custom made, embroidered by hand, and matching our characters’ personalities. The amount of dresses they created and the wealth of details on each of them was a crazy level of costume work that I never saw again in my life! Josée and Bertrand were together at the time, and they worked really closely with each other. It was shot on film, which is, to me, a particular and very precious way of shooting that I cherish. There is this suspense after validating a take about whether we’d have to do it again as a result of dust being on the lens. I like that suspended time when all the crew’s attention is directed toward the director of photography to approve the take because of such a small thing as dust. Funny that such a tiny thing can decide how everything else will unfold.
What sort of environment did the director establish onset to make filming the scenes of nudity and intimacy as comfortable as possible for the actors?
It’s good that these conversations are happening nowadays. We didn’t have intimacy coordinators when we shot “L’Apollonide,” and the idea of having someone like that onset never crossed my mind at the time. But, I was very shy—not really about being naked, but because I had never been naked next to a man in my life, with the exception of my boyfriend. So I was very lucky, because I could talk about this with Bertrand, and he really was a good listener. Actually, we met several times weeks before the shooting, just to talk about the issues I might have or find boundaries and solutions.
I tried the scenes and discussed them with him and the other actors weeks prior to filming, which really helped me with being comfortable when doing the movie. That was not an issue on the set, and everything went right for me, personally. Everybody was respectful and attentive. But of course, having intimacy coordinators now is good, I think, and helpful in this situation. I was lucky to work with attentive partners, but it is better if in any situation, you have someone to talk to and rely on for any issue regarding intimacy and nudity.
The nudity didn’t strike me as exploitative because of its matter-of-fact quality, which causes us to focus on your character’s mixture of confidence and vulnerability.
I see what you mean. I don’t know why, but I kind of knew that it would be like that. I knew that nothing would be sexualized just for the sake of it. I was trustful that the nudity would be represented in a way that was purposeful to what’s happening in the scene and with a certain distance. If the scene had involved close-ups, or more sexualized actions, I would have had to undergo a different sort of mental preparation, but in this case, there was a distance between me and the camera.
To what extent has the #MeToo movement been a transformational force in the French film industry?
Things are moving so slowly, because when a woman has to repeatedly say, “Yes, that happened to me,” it takes a long time for people to take it seriously. With alleged abusers like Gérard Depardieu, for example, there are always people who have been rushing to his defense, and it causes an uproar that takes so much space, when really, we just have to consider and address what in our society allows those things to happen. But recently, Judith Godreche opened up about director Benoît Jacquot, who began a relationship with her when she was 14 and he was 25 years older than her. Judith has been very grounded in her statements calling for better protection of women and children in the industry.
I say it is slow, but it is definitely making its way into the collective consciousness, and moving things forward. It is also having a good influence on other art fields in general, including the music industry, art schools and even the field of comics here in France. Most of my friends are in those fields, so I can totally see from the inside all the impacts and movements that are being made. Every step forward allows other people to speak up, think together, discuss and try to find solutions. The first time that I heard about the #MeToo movement, when it emerged in your country, I saw it not in terms of a particular industry, but the way in which it applied to every woman on earth. I thought it suddenly allowed any woman, girl or person who has been abused to talk about it openly.
So on my Facebook page, I posted “#MeToo,” simply because I had been assaulted when I was 15 by a random guy who I never saw again. I thought that if every girl who had a similar experience posted #MeToo, almost every girl in the world would basically say it, and I just felt that if everybody, mostly men and boys, suddenly saw almost all their women contacts say it, they would come to realize something that we all know as girls. It was a bit naive of me, but I had a point. When my family saw what I posted, they called me and immediately assumed it was linked to cinema. I told them it wasn’t at all, but it still happened, and I felt that any person who’s been through anything like that should be able to say it without having the shame be on them. When it happened to me, I was shocked, but shortly after, I threw it in the middle of conversations with no shame because I just wanted boys in my high school class to know the basic reality of what it is to be a girl, a women, a teenager girl. Simple as that. That was my mindset at the time, but not everyone can do that, and in a lot of cases, people are silenced, so it’s not that simple.
There is still so much resistance toward women when they speak out. People need something to support them when speaking up and I think—and hope—that is what is growing now. It’s important to illuminate how this sort of abuse is enabled in industries where abusers in places of power are considered untouchable. The same thing happens in families. So if anything is moving in a specific strata of society like cinema and resonates publicly, leading to changes that occur little by little in terms of justice and how we address it, enabling everyone who endured abuse to be able to talk about it safely, it gives me hope.
Many actors have said that they weren’t given the agency to speak up if something felt wrong to them, which is why intimacy coordinators have been so important to people I’ve interviewed, including Sydney Sweeney.
I was really on my own, but I was also surrounded by so many girls who I could talk to if I had any issues. Anaïs and the girls who worked with her on the costumes were the people who changed us, so they saw our bodies, and they were there for us. But it’s good that there are these intimacy coordinators who are dedicated to this specific task. I had no problem saying if something didn’t feel right, but other actors or actresses may not have felt comfortable enough to speak up in my situation. Having someone specific to talk to about these things is a much better way to go, especially for, like you said, people such as Sydney Sweeney on a show like “Euphoria,” where there are very hardcore sex scenes that are exposing and require quite a bit of choreography to go through it.
I recently shot a movie where I’m naked with a girl who plays my partner, and there are sex scenes between our characters. People on the set came up to me asking, “Are you okay?”, and I’m just lying there with my boobs out, which to me, doesn’t feel like a big deal. The more you don’t make a big deal about nudity, the better I am with it, but that’s just me. Of course, not everyone is like that. The director, who is a woman, wanted me and the other actress to feel safe and comfortable with consent and touch. So we talked about ways to approach this very progressively, and I suggested as a joke that we could also be brutal and do Systema.
But it wasn’t totally a joke, as I think martial arts can be a good way for you and someone else to get comfortable with touch. I did Systema one time with people I didn’t know, apart from one friend. I loved it so much! After going through a lot of warm-ups, we had to roll over and be comfortable with touch, because it’s contact combat. At some point, it stopped being practical and we were all like baby lions playing and fighting. My friend and I found ourselves in positions that we would never be in otherwise, grabbing arms and legs while yelling and rolling together on the ground. It was a mess, and it was so much fun. We laughed so much. It could be good to approach intimate scenes like that in some cases. For me, that’s the way. I have to find the fun in it.
When I interviewed Greta Gerwig, she likened acting to tennis in how you allow yourself in both cases to respond intuitively to a given situation, which results in organic behavior. I felt that the same is true of your performance in “House of Pleasures.”
Yes, exactly. I think you nailed it. I think it’s so interesting when I look at an actor’s performance that is so well put-together and clearly the result of great preparation, such as Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey’s work in “The Last of Us.” It is such a pleasure to see that level of work, and you believe their portrayals a hundred percent. But for my role in “L’Apollonide,” at the time it was just important for me to be in the moment and not overthink anything. What put us in our characters was the mood in the room, the lighting, and the fact that we were all together in our costumes, in that ambiance and not thinking about time or what hour it was. It felt like we were cut off from the rest of the world when we were in the house.
For my character, it all was a bit meta, anyway, as I was discovering so many new things, new people, new places, and also my own femininity and questions about sexuality, while getting to know all those amazing girls. I did not know any of them, and some of them knew each other well, so I really felt like I was arriving into something that pre-existed and was there to observe it. Our different personalities interacted in an organic way. I wouldn’t be thinking, ‘What is my character going through?’, so much as, ‘How are we in this room all together?’ The question wasn’t, ‘Who am I?’, but, ‘Who are we?’, in a sense.
What did you think of the film when you first saw it?
I must say, I was really pleased with it. It was very dear to my heart because I love so many of the girls in the film so much, and I loved seeing their performances onscreen, especially the ones that didn’t involve me. I discovered the other scenes of the girls, for example, Jasmine Trinca, whom I love so much as an actress and a person, but didn’t have much interaction with in the film. I think I became, over time, more aware about why my character enters that world only to eventually step out of it. It made sense to me that she leaves because she arrives at a moment when everything in the house crumbles, a girl is dying of syphilis, another is disfigured and the house will soon be taken down by authorities. But the more I’ve grown up, the more I understood that it was not just about all that. She is leaving because she still can, and that’s what is really important.
All of the girls were like Pauline in the beginning, but they kept going with the work until they couldn’t really get out of it, because the place grew on them. It becomes, of course, a bit of a prison because of the system of the house and the debts they have. But it is also a shelter from the world, where they have their own place and where their deepest relationships are with other women. They also have conflicts like sisters do. So on some level, they are attached to this life and the place. Despite the bad things that happen there, it is their home and they have each other.
My character can leave because she didn’t take the time to be rooted in it. She doesn’t bond and get emotionally attached to anyone. She’s not tied to the place. So she still has the space in her mind to envision another life for herself, but it doesn’t mean that she’ll end up being independent after she leaves. I think it underlines how many reasons the other girls have to be living there and the bond they share. It’s their life. So “L’Apollonide” comes back to my mind when I reflect on the material condition of women in general and the difficulty to be independent. It is kind of a continuum, really. That’s what the last image of the film conveys.
Was it a special experience for you to attend the movie’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival?
Yes. When I heard the news, I was happy, but I didn’t realize what a big deal it represented for the film. I didn’t really know what this festival was, so I just went back to the video game I was playing after I got the call. I had been to festivals before with other short films, and it was always so nice, but I didn’t realize that Cannes would be so crazy. Of course, it was an amazing experience, thrilling and weird with very happy and blissful moments. I was a bit stressed though because we always had to look so good and wear expensive clothes.
I saw footage of you and your co-stars lined up, planting upon one another a kiss that moved from one end of the line to the other.
I forgot about that! Yes, we had planned to do that just before going on the carpet. It was a testament to the bond that we had created during the shooting and had continued when we hung out together off the set. The scene where we all jump in the water during the picnic wasn’t planned. We just felt like taking a swim, and we also thought that while we’re at it, we could film it. Bertrand agreed, and we were all so happy to go for a naked swim after the long day of shooting! That’s the kind of energy we had together. “L’Apollonide” got me out of my shell a little bit. I am not that shy anymore and like to take a more active role in the films that I make. I just had a recent experience on a project where I had long discussions with the director and we would even rewrite certain scenes together. That’s more of what I’m longing for now, to realize a vision that is my own.
Do you aspire to write and direct your own films one day?
Honestly, if I’m behind a camera, it would likely be to catch life itself in the form of a documentary. There was a period in my life where I was filming all the time. I like to catch something that is interesting already in life. In terms of a fictional narrative, I like to be in the position of an actor because I can’t control everything. I just do what I have to do and then it’s not in my hands anymore. But I love working with images and particularly sound. For the moment, I am really focusing a lot on music, because it is something that I have always done, but have kept to myself because it has served as my shelter. I love playing the guitar and singing because it always gets me through hard times. I feel the best when I am alone playing my guitar.
Making cinema is a bigger part of my life because it’s what I love to work on with other people. It’s very important to me. But playing music is what I do every single day and night for hours, and where my whole heart feels at home, in a way. So I’d like to not always keep it to myself moving forward, and share some of the things I’m composing and writing. Who knows? Maybe I’ll write music someday for a film. That would be awesome.
Bertrand Bonello’s “House of Pleasures” is now streaming on The Criterion Channel along with the director’s 2016 film, “Nocturama,” and an interview with him recorded in 2020. His latest film, “The Beast,” opens in Chicago on Friday, April 12th, at the Music Box Theatre.
