Jean-Xavier de Lestrade: “We must not fall into the fascination of the criminal”

Oscar for best documentary in 2011 for An Ideal Guilty, the French director has successfully moved into fiction, adapting notable news items for the small screen. From Sambre to Games of Power via Laëtitia, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade today embodies French “true crime”. Meeting at Séries Mania.

You come from the documentary. Is this an asset for doing “true crime” fiction?
Jean-Xavier de Lestrade : Documentary is the school of humility, patience, observation and non-doing. You have to stay behind. Quite the opposite of fiction, which is something more standardized in the end, with actors, settings, dialogues. Everything is programmed and in fact, I try to include documentary in the sense that I try to breathe life into the fictional, by breaking what is too organized, too calibrated by the production of fiction. I use everyday accidents, as I call them. It could be the actor's mood that day. Where an external element invites itself. I believe that when I shoot a fiction, I am caught between two desires: that everything goes as planned, but also – perhaps even stronger although unconscious – that everything does not go as planned! Because out of the unexpected comes things that can surprise us and we're just waiting for that!

During the Séries Mania festival, you held a conference on the relationship between fiction and documentary. So these are two genres that you are trying to reconcile?
In my approach as a director, I have always put a lot of fiction into the documentary and a lot of documentary into the fiction, with this idea of ​​representing reality as best as possible. What is it that will touch, move, question or scandalize people? I believe that the two act differently on the public, but with the same force in the end.

What works best to convey reality? Fiction or documentary?
There is no hierarchy, we can transmit with both. The documentary imposes itself on the public. We do not question the credibility of reality. The spectator takes in what passes, can be touched, but cannot really identify with the characters, since they are in reality. Fiction makes it possible to reach the public in another place, because the spectator can more easily project themselves into the characters embodied by the actors. It allows the imagination to unfold. I would say at the end that the documentary tends to scandalize, to revolt, while the fiction will upset. But both leave lasting traces in people.

Whether it be Laëtitia Or Sambreand even Influence Gameswhy does reality inspire you so much?
It is possibly rooted in my background, which took me through the studies of law, political science… There is in me this need to be a citizen in the etymological sense, to participate in the city. I have the chance to make series that are seen by millions of people and I see it as a form of responsibility. That's why I want to tell stories that tell us, as a society, as human beings. I often go into reality to draw on these stories because that's what touches us, that's what moves us.

What makes you so good at capturing reality while filming fiction?
I like to adapt and bring out reality when we are shooting. I'm flexible like that. It's almost a director's philosophy: this is what the actor offers me that day and if I don't use it, it's a failure! I never forget that before filming dialogue exchanges between actors in a set, I film the meeting of two human beings, who arrive loaded with what they are, with their own story. When we are attentive to that, it helps in directing actors, to draw from them things that they themselves sometimes ignore.

You are also very careful to put victims at the center of your stories…
I am very attached to people who have no voice. Not because they have nothing to say, but because they are not listened to and because they cannot speak. In any case, we don't hear their words. Listening to these people, to these words, is a position in which I feel good. It is also a place where cinema and series have their place. For Sambreit was obvious that the viewer almost had to be forced to listen to what these victims had to say.

The success of your series is correlated with a certain fascination in society for news items. Do you understand it?
The whole history of journalism was born with news items. The first newspapers recounted various events. So this fascination has existed since we started telling stories! What is interesting is that certain news items have this talent for telling who we are. How we behave. Like a photo of the company at a specific time. What Ivan Jablonka had brilliantly achieved with his book Laëtitia (which inspired the series). He had taken the case through the prism of a sociological historian, treating this murder as a news item from the last century, asking himself: what does this reveal about us? When fiction takes hold of it, we can address millions of people and move lines, certain preconceived ideas. As much, I like reality to nourish fiction, but when fiction works well, it is fiction which nourishes reality.

You are careful not to glorify the killers who punctuate your series, like Tony Meilhon in Laëtitia or Enzo (Dino Scala) in Sambre ?
Yes… while not condemning the characters. Above all, you must not be too Manichean without falling into the fascination of the criminal. Which is very often the case and which is understandable, because we are fascinated by these people who dared to transgress the law and do something that we would never do as a mere mortal. From fascination to glorification, there is a step that must not be taken. And for that, you just have to show it as it is. In its banality. At his most pathetic. In Sambreas in Laëtitia, we immediately show the one who committed the unspeakable. It's not an investigation to guess the killer before episode 6. We know it right away, because it immediately allows the viewer to be shown the criminal in his daily life, as banal as possible. A little barbecue with sausages, the carnival with your children… Something very human, of a confusing banality which prevents it from becoming a mystical figure or even a form of hero. And alongside this ordinary daily life, we have the stories of the victims, of extreme violence. The two confront each other and will end up joining forces, but we have prepared the ground beforehand so that the spectator can make the connection in his head between the character at the beginning and the criminal he is at the end.

Do you listen to feedback from real victims who are represented in your fiction?
Yes, definitely. It's not about pleasing them, but we must be careful to treat these victims well, which means telling the truth. Sometimes the truth can be brutal, like for Laetitia's twin sister. But at the same time, we owe it to all the victims, because it is a solid base on which they can rebuild themselves.

Inventing a news item to imagine fiction without starting from reality, is that something that appeals to you?
No. I wouldn't know how to do Polar Park (the Arte series of 2023). There are too many stories that reality gives us. They have a unique talent that must be used! They have a very strong impact on the public. Sambre resonated in an incredible way with the public, because when we watch Sambrewe look at a story that really happened.