Peau d’Âne/Peau Neuve: the same, again, but different

This is part of a conversation between students Graphic Design Sarah Chapuis and Mieke ‘Mik’ Schelstraete about Chapuis’ movie, Peau Neuve, which is a sweded version of Peau d'Âne by Jacques Demy. Sweding is the act of remaking a movie with little to no means. The concept was introduced in the Michel Gondry film Be Kind Rewind. For a long time, Chapuis worked exclusively on the preparation of this film and collected the documentation of that process in a book.

Mieke 'Mik' Schelstraete
Is it the first time you made a documentation book like this?

Yes, but I really like documentation. I’m really interested in how to make things, not only in the results.

MMS
And have you done scripts before?

No, I don’t like to invent stories. That’s not my thing, I’m more of an analyser. That’s also why I made a movie that already exists, to not have to invent anything. I would really like to make a documentary. I don’t really like fiction I guess. I read some fiction, but… It’s not really my thing.

MMS
You made a documentary out of a fiction movie, kind of. In some way, you transpose the fiction of the story into the reality of making a movie.

I plan on making a making-of. It’s going to be like two hours long. It’s going to be fun to watch, but maybe only for the twelve people who participated.

MMS
That’s so great, because you remade a fiction movie, made it all about the process of it, and now you’re making a making-of of the process of making a movie that already exists.

A year ago, when the movie wasn’t a project yet, it seemed so huge to me that I thought I would never do it. So I was thinking about just making the documentation and not doing the movie. I thought “It’s okay if the movie’s never made. I’ll just have the documents for a movie that was never made.” I was okay with preparing for something that would never exist. The project could have existed like this, in another dimension. Without the movie.

MMS
Do you think, now that you’ve made the movie, that the movie itself is important?

Yes! Much more than I thought before. When I was preparing, the preparation took so much time that I thought that the end goal was not that important. But then once we shot it, it was such a great experience. Then editing it and having the final product… The movie in itself became much more important than I thought it would be. In the beginning, when I talked about the project with my mentor, I thought I wouldn’t show the movie to the jury. Maybe I would show it to my friends, but the real project would be only the preparation. That changed when the movie was there.

MMS
The commitment to remaking it, not making a version of it, like a classic remake, is what makes it interesting. It also makes it really funny.

The main goal was humor. 

MMS
It’s a funny way of making a remake. Just not changing anything.

We could argue that it’s not a sweded movie because it took too long to make. Usually a sweded movie, you don’t spent a year doing it. Also, I shortened it but only by half. 40 minutes is long for a sweded movie. If you search for ‘sweded movie’ on Youtube, you can find a lot of them. Mostly the story is very, very condensed.

MMS
Did you make sweded movies before Peau Neuve?

Kind of… but not really. When I was a little kid, I didn’t like to use my imagination so I remade movies but only from what I remembered. I wasn’t trying to really replicate the movie. So, no.

MMS
It’s a great concept, a sweded movie. Is it usually more about parodying?

No, it’s a thing in itself. A parody tries to mock the original. A sweded movie isn’t trying to mock, I guess it’s more of an homage. It’s difficult to pinpoint what it is exactly. But in a parody the humor comes from mocking or enlarging aspects of the original. Whereas in a sweded movie it comes from the fact that you don’t have the means to produce this movie. So the humor comes from using a banana as a phone: the difference between the means, how you succeed in making it look like the original. That’s the difference.

MMS
Is there anything else that you want to add about your project that you think is really interesting and I haven’t asked you about?

We didn’t mention the music. I’m very proud of my friends for making it. In the beginning we were only going to sing the songs and add them to the original instrumentals. But then my friend proposed to remake the music with her family. It’s the least sweded part of the movie. Her brother and parents are classically trained musicians. They made a small orchestra during the winter break and recorded five songs for the movie. They sent me some videos of them playing and I couldn’t believe it.

MMS
Did they do it by ear?

No, her brother found the original scores and rewrote them for their instruments. I have them in the book. What I liked about it, is that I didn’t plan it at all. A friend just proposed to do it. It’s great, because a lot of people where really invested. So it was great to see so much of my friends applying their talent and having great ideas. 

MMS
It’s an accomplishment in itself to collect so many people and get them excited.

I’m pretty proud of that too. First of all, of having so many great friends and second of all, of having succeeded in bringing all of them together. It’s an emotional project in that way. There are so many people who put their heart in it. Like in learning their lines and making music, helping me… Even the ones who listened to me talk about it every fucking day.