2024-01-17 17:13:51
Energetic reality, Ruben Alves took the (successful) challenge of treating “serious” subjects (consent, prostitution, etc.) with tenderness and humor. Relaxed interview.
The series begins with the death of the father. Is it a psychoanalytic symbol or just another way of starting a scenario?
Ruben Alves : A bit of both. It started with two characters who find themselves orphans, Ben and Charlie, brother and sister. The idea was also to open up a tension: on the one hand the son, played by Guillaume Labbé, who left for Paris to try a career as an actor, and who feels misunderstood by his deceased father, on the other , Mathias, played by Simon Ehrlacher, who works on the estate, who has no father, and who has taken the spiritual place of the son.
Your desire with Escort Boys ?
I wanted to deconstruct masculinity, so I had to start from the beginning, that is to say from the relationship that the man has with his father, in order to move towards the central question of the series: in what way are feminine desires will teach these four boys to become men.
What is your definition of masculinity?
I find it beautiful in a so-called “alpha” man that he assumes his part of femininity. In a very primary way, man is the protector who must get rid of his predatory nature. In my last film, Miss, I addressed the question of femininity. Throughout the construction of the film, I had lots of theories to answer them, until the end where I no longer had any precise idea of a definition. Here it’s the same…
You put four men on display. However, we are touched by the importance of women in the series. They are strong, reassuring, and hide their fragility with modesty (like those played by Rossy de Palma or Carole Bouquet). Why did you only put men on display?
What interests me is not to deal with the relationship between man and prostitution, but the relationship between a man who prostitutes himself and a woman who seeks pleasure. It is to look at the man essentially through the desire of the woman, to switch, to break these decades of patriarchy where the man paying himself a whore is less disturbing than the opposite. I wanted to say: now, women have the power, they order guys for their pleasure or comfort or anything else, it doesn’t matter, but it is the woman who is at the center of these desires, these impulses, without judgment .
Show that the balance of power is interchangeable?
Yes, I also want to show strong women, like Romane played by Fleur Copin, or Charlie, played by Marysol Fertrad, a 17-year-old orphan, but who carries everything, facing fragile men. One day, a friend told me an anecdote about Sagan. At the end of a dinner at her house where a couple of friends had spent the evening complaining, Sagan asked them to leave the table. She turns to my friend and says to him: you see Philippe, elegance is never showing your friends what is wrong, because for that, there are doctors, shrinks and priests. This made an impression on me; I admire strong women.
If there is a season two, what subject would you like to cover?
Addiction. This subject touches me, since I have friends who are addicts. But above all, I want people to like my characters. If they can have faults or be violent, my view of them will be nourished by tenderness. Exactly like Sagan.
Escort Boysavailable on Prime Video
Par Alexis Lacourte
Photos Romain Favre
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