EnglishMovies - Chien et Chat : interview with Reem Kherici
By Mulder, 03 february 2024
The world of cinema is about to welcome a new comedy rich in humor and suspense, starting February 14, 2024, with the release of Reem Kherici's latest film, Chien et Chat. This daring comedy tells the captivating story of two improbably linked duos, embarking on a breathless road trip between Montreal and New York.
Q: Chien et chat is your 3rd film as a director, (after paris à tout prix in 2013 and Jour J in 2017), quite different from the previous ones in form and content. How did this animal adventure comedy come about ?
Reem Kherici: This film is quite simply the dream I've had since I was 7 years old: to make animals talk. After Paris à tout prix, (where I realized that I could tell a story with images), I suggested to my producers, Eric and Nicolas Altmayer, that we follow up with Chien et chat. It was in fact a huge project, the likes of which are unheard of in France. It just so happened that their company, Mandarin, was preparing the animated film Sahara with Station Animation, in which, incidentally, I did a voice. So we decided to take things one step at a time, and I started work on Jour J because I'd discovered storytelling as a profession, and I wanted to continue creating, learning and refining my directing skills.
Q: Particularly as, at the time, you were already sharing your life with a Maine coon cat named Diva, who is the real heroine of your story...
Reem Kherici: Yes, a daily source of inspiration! Like a painter fascinated by his muse, I was literally bewitched by Diva, on the one hand by her extraordinary physique, but also by her personality: she was as confident as she was clumsy, haughty, girly, immature, with a charisma like no other... Physically, she was a real Disney character: big lips, a huge hindquarters and a mane à la Beyoncé. In short: a star! When guests came to the house, she put on a show, and everyone was captivated by her beauty. All this only fueled my desire to film her, because there was something very cinematic about her. So I never gave up...
Q : Another important element in the puzzle that led to Chien et chat: your stay in Canada...
Reem Kherici: I lived there for 4 years as a work-study student after Paris à tout prix. Beyond my fascination for this animal, I was also drawn to the beauty of the Canadian landscape in winter. I remember crossing a frozen lake on a snowmobile, living the moment as if in a cinema tracking shot, with the mad desire to film it all. So I had my heroine and my set!
Q: And were you aware at the time that you were imagining a family story, aimed particularly at children ?
Reem Kherici : Not at all, probably because I'm still a fan of Pixar and Disney, and the whole world that rocked my childhood is still with me today on a second reading. I believe that those who keep their childlike spirit never grow old. I'm now the mother of two young children, but I originally made the film for the little girl I still was, who dreamed of making her cat talk!
Q : You can imagine how quickly Diva wanted to find a partner: that young dog Chichi on screen...
Reem Kherici: As a screenwriter, I wondered what character I could put in opposition to this cat, and the dog came to the fore: it's still, in my opinion, the most interesting duo on earth to watch! In the story, we assume that Diva comes from a very bourgeois background (we'll find out that's not quite the case...), so I imagined that she'd have to make her way with a street dog. And since Diva is very, very beautiful, I chose a baby Labrador, who is also something of a marvel. The script will follow them through their misadventures, showing how each learns from the other as they overcome their differences.
Q: In fact, this is the heart of the film, and ties in with the great classics of the animated genre: discovering others, overcoming prejudices, growing up. Your film, including the human characters, also sweeps up these themes.
Reem Kherici: I've always found it important to entertain while telling a deeper story. Underneath my fun-loving girly exterior, I do have a point of view on the world around me. In my eyes (and I'm even more aware of this now that I'm a mom), cinema is a prism through which we can talk about important subjects to adults and children alike, precisely through animated films. I love the idea of parents coming out of the cinema saying "I loved it"! And that's why, in addition to my two animal characters, I had to write another equally credible adult duo: Monica and Jack. This gymnastics never left me as I worked on the script over the years... On the children's side, the idea of learning from each other without stopping at differences. On the adult side, knowing how to move beyond this ultra-connected world of social networks and appearances...
Q : It's a subject that seems to touch you...
Reem Kherici : Absolutely. In my profession, we're often made up, dressed up, I was going to say "groomed"! But we don't know who's who, and there's this feeling that the mask mustn't fall off... This subject runs through all my films: in Paris à tout prix, I play a very Parisian girl, perched on her heels, who plays up to it, but who deep down is a bleeding-heart angry with her father. In Jour J, she's a girl who organizes very "m'as-tu vu" weddings, even though she's completely complexed by her social origins. And in Chien et chat, I play Monica, (whose real first name is Monique!), a very Louboutin rhinestone and glitter instagrammer who, in reality, has no friends apart from her cat and lives in her van... One of the evils of our time is not taking the time to get to know people, while putting labels on them. I'm the first victim of this... After OSS 117, my 1st film, I was labelled the bimbo, even though that's not me at all in real life. In the film, Monica's fans on Instagram follow her mainly to make fun of her. It's very cruel, just like our world...
Q : Chien et chat is a true adventure comedy, with a thriller twist: here too, it contrasts with the style of your two previous films...
Reem Kherici: I think I've grown with each film I've made. Before Paris à tout prix, I'd never dreamed of or pretended to be a director or screenwriter. They weren't things I was allowed to do! When I was asked to make this 1st film, I did it properly, kindly, almost apologetically. For Jour J, the staging is already a bit more thought-out and polished. I came into prep with precise ideas for my shots. For Chien et Chat, it took 3 years to write, and during that time I was never certain that the film would get made, so ambitious was it... So as I was writing and preparing my film, I told myself that if, one day, I was "given the keys to the truck", I wanted it to be a knockout and not disappoint either the producers or, above all, the public! I wanted to be able to stand up to the comparison with equivalent American productions. When I was writing, I tried to offer a show that lived up to my dreams, working from storyboards, thinking about stunts and car chases, and reassuring my producers, who were sometimes afraid of some of my very ambitious ideas! But I never gave up. Chien et Chat represents a colossal challenge in the sense that I absolutely had to live up to the dream I was allowed to realize. As you know, we made this film on a big budget, but one-tenth the size of American productions of this kind. Where there are 300 3D animators in the U.S., there were 30 of us. On the shoot, I didn't have 80 days but 34 to get everything in the can, with days when we had to do 30 shots at -30 degrees. Each of us took on several jobs at once to keep things within budget, while also adapting to the weather conditions. It was a very small-scale operation for a production of this size... In the end, the public didn't care (and they were right), but I wanted to achieve a certain level of excellence, and I was willing to make sacrifices. I remember the 1st day on the set, February 1, 2022: I burst into tears and said to myself "I'm here". It was the culmination of 7 years' work, doubts about the profession, humiliations like "oh yeah, his film about his cat...". Finally, I was going to shoot. So that didn't mean I was going to make it, but I was ultra proud to have obtained my financing and to be able to take my team on this adventure, while knowing that obviously, the hardest part was still to come...
Q : And one of those major difficulties was the 3D production of your heroes Diva and Chichi. The digital effects created by Station Animation are truly stunning...
Reem Kherici: It was my producers at Mandarin who put me in touch with this French company that had worked on the animated film SAHARA, in which there were no live-action character inclusion sequences. So both they and I were complete novices! I met up with Christian Ronget, the head of Station Animation, and we gave ourselves a year's preparation to produce what's known as an "animatique", in other words an animated storyboard (like a cartoon of the film) of all the 2D scenes, as well as those featuring Diva and Chichi, which were produced in 3D. This enabled me to precisely time the duration of my shots and prepare my cut. As these 3D scenes are very expensive, it also avoided shooting unnecessary shots. Working this way reassured everyone (including me!), and Christian's idea undoubtedly prevented us from running straight into the wall by being less well prepared for the technical challenge of Chien et Chat. Then, during the shoot, we filmed the scenes where the real characters
Franck, Philippe or myself and the animated characters had to cross paths. For reference purposes, we had light doubles" of the animals, plush animals in their actual size, but also green puddings to inlay them in post-production. When we got to post-production, once we'd edited the shots without integrating the animals, I mimed Diva and Chichi for the animators, using the voices already recorded by Inès Reg and Artus! But beforehand, during the 4 years of preparation, I went looking on Instagram for hundreds of videos of cats and dogs in every conceivable position or attitude to illustrate concretely what I wanted to see on screen once the special effects had been produced. It's thanks to this "bible", started in 2017, that the film can be released today in 2024...
Q : At what point are you certain that this colossal work on the 3D effects is a success ?
Reem Kherici: Diva's final model was not visible until September 2022. When she was finally ready, I felt an enormous emotion, because it was even better than I'd hoped... I could see the texture of her fur when she moved, her facial expressions, the way she walked, ran, jumped... That's when I told myself that the gamble had a chance of succeeding. But the pressure was on all the way: after Diva and Chichi had been completed, we also had to work on the animals' interaction with humans, all those scenes where the cat and the dog are in our arms, at our side, etc... All in all, first it's a classic directing job, and then you have to start another one by talking to another team, explaining how Diva should turn her ear or how Chichi should appear moved... I think I'm ready for a career in mime...
Q: There's also the impressive frozen lake scene, which also uses digital effects...
Reem Kherici: That scene alone legitimizes shooting in Canada. It's where the bond between Diva and Chichi really begins, when he saves her life after she abandons him... It's a moment of intense emotion, pure action and laughter that ends with "I forgive you, but I'm going to smell your ass"! This scene was extremely complicated and expensive to shoot, as 3/4 of the shots are digital: the animals, the ice, the water. The shot of Diva on the ice block alone represents over 4,000 hours of work! Everything had to be invented in the image...
Q: Let's not forget the human characters, starting with your own: Monica. Was it obvious that you would play this role ?
Reem Kherici : Of course, and for many reasons... First of all, if I play the 1st roles in my films, it's to save time! It saves me having to explain to my lead actress what's in my head, to reassure her that she's well made-up, well-dressed, not ridiculous despite the comic situations to be played out, or to protect her from shooting conditions which, (for this film), were very difficult, sometimes at -37°... So, yes, directing and acting is an extra workload, but above all it's one less mental burden! Secondly, who else but me could play Diva's crazy mistress? I loved that cat so much, I was so sad the day I lost her and so happy when I found her... So I wasn't afraid to be emotional when it came to playing those moments.
Q: For the character of Jack, you chose Franck Dubosc, to whom you offer a rather unusual role...
Reem Kherici: I wanted an "English-style" actor, a gentleman burglar, and it's true that you don't immediately think of Franck for this kind of role! But he's also this handsome, elegant man, as well as being an extraordinary actor. I was extremely lucky to be able to work with a partner I've known all my life... Franck has always been very respectful towards me, and in this business I've learned that you have to surround yourself with people who want to work with you. For this film, I needed someone who would trust me and let me take him along on the adventure. Trust and desire are two essential elements in a film... Franck doesn't need me in his acting career, but I know that no one had ever offered him a role like Jack's before, and we got on very well together...
Q : For the role of Brandt, the "villain" of the story, you reunite with Philippe Lacheau...
Reem Kherici: He's been my partner for 20 years, and also helped write Chien et Chat. I felt that offering him a counter-role was more fun than the more expected, more conventional lead role. I like artists who are willing to step out of their comfort zone... And then there was the idea of pitting two generations against each other on screen: Franck is a slightly old-school burglar, outmatched by this faster, stronger, more muscular guy... Their tandem is absolutely delightful, all the more so as Philippe never hesitates to make a fool of himself or add a little extra, whether in action or burlesque. And we understand each other in a second. He's like a big brother to me, in whose eyes I want to do well. He's the one who taught me everything, and when Fifi validates what I propose, it feels good to have his blessing!
Q : Let's talk about the voices of Diva and Chichi: Inès Reg and Artus...
Reem Kherici: I lived with Diva for 10 years. I knew her perfectly... For me, she wasn't the Duchess in The Aristochats. Diva is a child, goofy and clumsy. One day, I was filming a show called "LOL" and I met Inès Reg, and I fell in love with her immediately. I didn't know her well, I'd only seen her famous "When are you going to put glitter in my life, Kevin? I was looking at an ultra-cute, cute chick with a lovely youthful voice. So I asked her to try out for the role of Diva, and she accepted and was exceptional! It was Diva, without a doubt... For Chichi, who is still a puppy, we needed a childlike voice, but when casting young actors, I couldn't find the vox comica I needed... So I turned to comedians, remembering Artus, with whom I had made the film Brutus VS César, and his childlike side... He's got a great sense of joke, he's a charrieur, a sniper, and Chichi's like that too. Artus also did brilliant tests and I hired him. I'm very happy with these two voice choices, especially as it's a very difficult exercise to play a character without embodying him physically. Both Inès and Artus have given Diva and Chichi a real identity...
Q: You had them say some pretty crude dialogues: that was a daring move for a film aimed at a young audience!
Reem Kherici: When I wrote the film, I didn't yet have any children, so I didn't yet have a filter! But at the time, I tested the dialogues with my friends who had children, and I realized that swear words were totally transgressive... When they hear "ass", they die laughing! They love having fun with something that isn't usually allowed. So be careful, the film is never gravelly or vulgar: we stay on the edge of what pleases children and can also make adults laugh... That was exactly what we wanted: not to be in the tone of "Ted", for example, because we'd lose the younger audience, but I wanted to keep my style of humor. I come from "la bande à Fifi", so that's how I talk in real life: I can be rude without being vulgar... So there are 4 swear words in the film, one of which is "sentir le cul" ("smell my ass"), and I'm completely comfortable with that!
Q: A word about the music in your film, which also features a very full soundtrack by Laurent Aknin...
Reem Kherici: I've been working with Laurent since Paris à tout prix. He's a very assiduous composer, and so he had to be on Chien et chat! He started composing before the shoot, when we were making the animatics for the film. He had to do it over and over again, because animation and films with animals impose a very particular tempo. The film's music is very rich indeed: it took 4 years of work. I was very demanding, and Laurent was able to put his talent at the service of the project, leaving aside the notion of ego... and his hours of sleep. Right up until the day before the recording, we were still composing new scores for the soundtrack, and I'm very happy about that, because everyone talks about it after seeing the film...
Q: We understand that the Chien et Chat adventure was quite extraordinary for you. Did you manage to enjoy yourself at the heart of this enormous machinery ?
Reem Kherici: Every day! Think about it: I've made my dream come true, and I'm very grateful to those who made it possible. It took 7 years of my life, but I gained 20 years of experience... So yes, the process of making the film was long and arduous. Shooting in the cold was tough. I had no guarantees as to the final result. But it was an incredible experience, proving to myself that with hard work and conviction, you can do it, however impossible it may seem! So yes, it was the most difficult professional experience of my life, but I came out the winner, so I'm proud and happy. What's more, it was a huge gift from my mother, as I was able to show Chien et Chat to Noé, my 4-year-old son, and tell him "you can have anything you want, as long as you believe in it and work very, very hard". I'm the proof, he knows I'm not lying... I was pregnant with him when I wrote the film, he came to the set, he followed every stage of the project, he got to know Diva, he saw me think, doubt, cry and like all children, he understood very well what I went through and how important this film is for me. When the film was screened for the team, he came up to me and said "I'm proud of you, Mom"...
Synopsis:
Mmonica is the owner of Diva, a famous cat and Internet star. Jack is a thief whose latest heist - a huge, priceless ruby - was accidentally swallowed by a stray dog named Chichi. By a quirk of fate, Monica and Jack find themselves separated from their pets, and watch helplessly as they escape to an unknown destination... And so begins a crazy road trip between Montreal and New York for the two duos, who have nothing in common. On one side, the humans who have lost track of their precious pets, and on the other, the animals left to their own devices to find their masters... without knowing that police officer Brandt is on their tail, ready to do anything to get the ruby back.
Dog and Cat
Directed by Reem Kherici
Produced by Jonathan Vanger, Christian Ronget, Sidonie Dumas, Franck Samuel, Pierre Coré, Éric et Nicolas Altmayer
Written by Reem Kherici, Tristan Schulmann
With Franck Dubosc, Reem Kherici, Philippe Lacheau
Music: Laurent Aknin
Director of photography: Dominique Fausset
Editing: Antoine Vareille
Production companies: Gaumont Production, La Station Animation, Mandarin Production
Distributed by Gaumont (France)
Release date: February 14, 2024 (France)
Running time: 86 minutes
Photos: Copyright Gaumont
(Source : press kit)