His Oscars for Nomadland haven’t changed anything for Chloe Zhao. The American filmmaker visits Paris to defend The Eternals, has not taken the big head since the 2015 Deauville Festival when she presented The Songs that my brothers taught me.
“Making a Marvel movie was a dream for me,” she confides in 20 minutes. I am a fan of these films and I have drawn manga for a long time so I was not disoriented to stage a fantastic universe. »No sooner had she read the script of the Eternals that the filmmaker fell in love with it. “The philosophical dimension of history thrilled me. For me The Eternals, it’s The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick in Marvel style. “
A family affair
Aliens created by an inconvenient god hold the fate of humans in their hands in this action-packed tale. “It is above all a family affair. With all that that involves love, rivalries and liabilities complicated to manage, ”insists the 39-year-old filmmaker who has made a specialty of describing America’s left behind. ” Basically, The Eternals does not make me change the theme, she admits. The protagonists are unsuited to the world around them, which confronts them with painful choices. “
What was very different for the director of The Rider, accustomed to independent films and microscopic teams, was to face a pharaonic filming. “The production had managed to create a little bubble for me so that I wasn’t overwhelmed,” she recalls. But I learned to be patient when I discovered that it took longer to coordinate five hundred technicians than five. However, Chloé Zhao declares herself delighted with her experience, especially with her interpreters. “As in my previous films, everyone participated in the development of their characters with great freedom,” she confirms.
The release of the film finds her serene while waiting to take a “good nap” before taking up the collar for a project on which she does not yet wish to express herself. “What I hope for my career is to continue to surprise me as much as the public,” she said. A great program that we hope to see Chloé Zhao carry out.