La Femme la plus riche du monde (The Richest Woman in the World) from Thierry Klifa: a familial tragedy of power, secrets and vengeance

What led you to this sixth feature film, inspired by the Bettencourt affair?

I became interested in this affair as soon as it became public. I quickly felt the urge to try to understand what was at play on both an intimate and universal level. To read, to investigate, to understand what really lies underneath the media’s interest. What I discovered was a complex and deeply human subject. This is a heart-wrenching family story, with its secrets, its buried past, and a historical context still too little explored in France: that of these great industrial, Catholic families, whose power was also partly built on shadowy grounds, in particular collaboration with Nazi Germany and a certain ordinary antisemitism. I realized that I could use this story as inspiration to write another. Not to report a sensational news item, but to draw from it a novelesque and universal narrative.

Your cinema often explores troubled family dynamics.

It’s not so much the family that interests me as the idea of transmission. This time, I pushed all the sliders to the maximum. I didn’t try to create empathy with my characters, to make them likable or to force any attachment. What mattered was staying as close as possible to their truth. They are figures who are both monstrous and deeply childlike. If any emotion arises, it’s because it lies in their vulnerabilities, their loneliness. I absolutely wanted to avoid pathos. These are colorful characters, rooted in a singular, sometimes excessive era, and that’s what makes them so fascinating.

The upper bourgeoisie is a highly codified, almost suffocating world. What were your visual principles for constructing this universe visually?

I worked extensively on the artistic direction, both in terms of the visuals and the sets and costumes, to give the film a coherent identity. The aim was to avoid falling into the trap of recreation. It’s a world I know, having had the opportunity to observe it up close during my childhood and adolescence. The false assumption is to imagine that, in their world, wealth is on display. We’re far from Succession, The White Lotus, or The Square, even if we’re in the home of the richest woman in the world. Of course, they live in very beautiful homes, they travel by private jet, but there aren’t that many outward signs of wealth. Marianne’s world — the character played by Isabelle Huppert — is highly codified but also, at the beginning of the story, rather lifeless. The more this photographer becomes involved with her life, the more everything comes to life. He shakes her up, both literally and figuratively. We played a lot with bright colors to contrast with the duller aspect of the daughter’s character, played by Marina Foïs. In terms of directing, I always start with the characters to tell the story. Then the actors guide that direction. There are also quite a few close-ups that create a sense of intimacy with the audience. Since these characters live in an almost sealed-off world, the camera seeks to penetrate them from within.