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"This is what it looks like when every parent's biggest nightmare comes true": The film about the children murdered by their nanny
"Delicate Song," the successful and acclaimed book about the nanny who murdered the children she cared for, has recently become a movie, which has now gone on VOD.
In an interview, director Lucy Burltau explains why this story is for her a poignant indictment against modern society
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Paris
Avner Shavit
Wednesday, October 21, 2020, 12:00 p.m.
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Trailer for The Movie "Delicate Song" (New Guys)
At the beginning of the previous decade, a New York nanny named Yoslin Ortega murdered the two children she cared for - six-year-old Lucia Krim and her two-year-old brother Leo.
Four years later, Laila Suleimani, inspired by this horrific story, wrote "A Delicate Poem", a novel that has become one of the great successes of the French literary world in recent years: it won Goncourt, the most important decoration in the local arena, became a bestseller and translated into many languages Rama Ayalon, Modan Publishing).
Suleimani copied the plot from the Big Apple to Paris, appreciating that instead of focusing on the sensationality of the horrific story, she took advantage of it to engage with deeper issues - for example, social tensions in France as revealed in the destructive dynamics between the nanny and parents.
The cinematic adaptation of the book leaves the plot in France, where it came out a year and a half ago.
We had a one-time screening at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and there were plans to distribute it commercially, but they were canceled due to the corona, and it can now be seen on the streaming services of the various platforms.
Behind the adaptation is Lucy Burltau, an actress and filmmaker whose second feature film as a director.
"Making a movie is never a simple thing, so if you are already embarking on such a crazy adventure, it is better to go all the way and exhaust the challenge," she told me when I met her for an interview in Paris last January, just before the plague.
"Therefore, I chose to take a risk and process an esteemed book, and not just another one - but one that describes such a difficult sequence of events."
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"If already a challenge, then go to the end."
From "A Gentle Song" (Photo: PR)
This is - when making a film about a nanny who murdered two infants, I guess the biggest question is what to show and what not to show.
How did you make a decision on the matter?
"When it comes to murder, the book is much more detailed, but the murder is something I just could not show on screen. It's unbearable for me. It's something I would not want to be done as a viewer, so I certainly will not do it as a director.
" I asked myself a lot of questions, and the answers Changed and crystallized only in the final stages of editing.
There was a stage where I thought of showing nothing, and in the end I decided to show a little.
The boundaries were clear to me.
This is a moral matter.
In any case, the most difficult scenes for me are not related to physical violence, but to the psychological manipulations that the nanny inflicts on the children - manipulations that get worse and worse until they are already difficult to look at. "
What was your ethics regarding the girl playing the murdered woman?
"
She was six years old at the time of the filming, and we hid from her during what was happening at the end, but after he came out we revealed to her what was happening.
Her response was 'I could actually pretend to be dead'.
She saw the movie, but not the last scenes.
Her parents took her out earlier. "
"The girl said, 'I could have pretended to be dead.'
Director Lucy Burletau in Paris (Photo: Avner Shavit)
The father character in the film is played by Antoine Reinerz, and alongside him are two of the best actresses in France: Karin Vier as a nanny and Leila Becky as a mother.
"It's a character of North African descent, but I saw no point in making it a big deal," says the director.
"There is one scene where she hosts for dinner a company that says racist things, something that unfortunately happens quite a lot in France, but beyond that, its origin is completely trivial. Given the diverse demographics that exist in the country today, it only makes sense to have such a character."
The father is a music producer, the mother a lawyer - and both are very busy, too busy.
"For me, 'Delicate Song' is an indictment against modern society," says the director.
Who is the real monster in the movie?
Not the nanny, but the company.
We live in a society that eats its children.
In a lot of movies these days, bad things happen to children, and it's no coincidence, it's the spirit of the days.
Instead of taking on the matter, taking care of daycare and the like, the French government is just privatizing the market more and more.
Moms today are going crazy.
They need everything: to be good facts, to be good partners and of course also to be good family wives.
How is everything possible?
Obviously something will go wrong.
"" The father in the film is also a tragic character.
He's not just a music producer - he seems to be involved in art, but in fact he's just a mediator who handles other people's art.
He would like to do something on his own and take risks, but how can you when you have a spouse and two children?
That is the violent sadness of the bourgeoisie. "
The violent sadness of the bourgeoisie.
From "A Gentle Song" (Photo: PR)
If I am not mistaken, in reality the New York parents were richer than the Parisian parents in the book, who are
actually not so rich but simply middle class.
"True, and originally the symbolic charge is much greater, but we are always someone's bourgeois. We will always have more money than anyone else. The parents in the film are not millionaires, but relative to the nanny they are rich.
The fact that the book is freely based on a true story did not move me at all." , Says the director about the relationship between "delicate song" and reality. "I don't care what really happened and what didn't.
To me, the film is like a nightmare - here's what happens when our biggest fear as parents comes true.
"" I could shoot the film in a naturalistic way - just take a criminal case and present it on screen correctly.
French cinema is good at these things.
I wanted to do something different, to give the story a dimension of tragedy, of mythology.
Thriller is an effective form of action, but we always stay away from the characters, and here I wanted to bring the viewers closer to them.
For me, the film puts a mirror in front of us, probably in front of those who live in Paris.
I can see myself in the parents' characters, and I think sometimes we are very close to the nanny as well. "
What was the biggest challenge for you in doing so?
" To recreate the feeling of discomfort I felt when I finished reading the book, but when I probably use artistic means other than these "There is in the literature, and when I describe things in a much less graphic way than him."
What could have stopped her?
From "A Gentle Song" (Photo: PR)
Despite Burleteau's great passion for the project, it was not a critical or box office success in France.
"Because the book was such a major cultural phenomenon in France, viewers and critics were unable to judge the film on its own," she says.
"It was very frustrating. That's why I was so happy with the screening in Jerusalem, because there they finally talked about the film, and didn't compare it to a book."
Do you regret even putting yourself in it?
"No, it's always better to fail than to be left with dreams in a drawer."
To what extent was writer Leila Suleimani involved in the project?
"She told me I would do what I wanted. After watching, Leila told me 'after seeing the film, I asked myself how I was able to write such terrible things.' Although the film is less detailed than the book, but once words are translated into images, it turns everything Much more tangible, and makes you look at it and understand it differently. "
If you could meet Yoslin Ortega, the nanny who committed the murders, and ask her one question.
What would you ask?
"Maybe I would have asked what could have stopped her and prevented her from murdering. Asking why she did what she did is pointless, because there is probably no single answer, if any. I talked about it with actress Karin Vier and our interpretation is that for the nanny, it was a gesture of love. "She wanted to die and thought that if she died with the children, she would take them with her."
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