« The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture »
Alfred Hitchcock
The world of crime fiction is fascinating because it awakens our secret fears and our buried fascination with “evil” — a fascination we keep under control, but which can resurface at any moment.
When I was younger, I noticed that James Bond films are better when the villain is strong and charismatic.
I like to create universes. Universes I bring to life through images, through photographs. These visions are like still frames from a film playing inside me.
I am a photographer and I dream of cinema.
With “The Villains”, a series I have been working on for more than ten years, I wanted to explore violence in our society by paying tribute to these antagonistic characters who would become my messengers.
In these tableaux, which I want to be cinematic, I construct film scenes. I create still images that I want to be powerful, striking, tense and often allegorical.
While making still images, I dream of seeing those frozen moments come to life. I love almost every shot in Sergio Leone’s films; he is an absolute master of the genre. I also love the thrillers of Nicolas Winding Refn, David Lynch and Na Hong-jin. My universe is steeped in this cinematic culture.
Taking the viewer by the hand, I lead them to a crossroads. From there, it is up to their imagination to turn the story into a film. This “cinema”, born in my mind, then unfolds its screenplay in the viewer’s mind. It is up to them to finish the film, whether reluctantly or for their own pleasure. In this way, my obsessions and fantasies take on new life.
By combining violence, absurdity, irony, nightmares and reflections on our society, I also hope to encourage viewers to question their own prejudices.
“The Villains” also invites us to question what we define as “evil”: a shifting notion, a moral value that can be considered from different perspectives.
And as in any good thriller, for the world of a story to be truly compelling, it needs a “real villain”. The crueller and more malevolent that villain is, the more powerful the film becomes, the greater its hero appears, and perhaps the deeper our questions about the subject become.
This is what my series “The Villains” seeks to bring to light.
