We met with the Belgian filmmaker Xavier Seron, who returns to the feature film format 8 years after Death By Death [+lee también:
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entrevista: Xavier Seron
ficha de la película]. With Life's a Bitch [+lee también:
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entrevista: Xavier Seron
ficha de la película], released in Belgian cinemas on 20 March via O’Brother, he continues his exploration of our contemporary neuroses with caustic humour and stunning black-and-white cinematography through the unique relationship between three pairs of humans and their dog. A biting comedy that reveals our ontological solitude.

Cineuropa: What were the origins of this project?
Xavier Seron: I grew up with dogs, they reveal our humanity. Elliott Erwitt, a photographer who recently passed away, took many pictures of dogs, and he said: "Look at these pictures closely, these are not dogs, these are people.” This perspective allowed me to talk about ourselves. The other trigger for the film was when my producer called me to ask if I had a project that would be compatible with the support for lightweight productions from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, which allows (and forces) to shoot feature film projects in 24 months. Considering the time it took me to edit my debut feature, this idea interested me. 

What did you want our relationship with dogs to say about our relationship to humans?
There are those people who adore dogs, and those who are scared of them. The two positions tell you something. The first, is that what we look for in dogs is what we look for in our fellow human beings: faithfulness, absence of judgement, an attentive ear, the joy of living. Qualities which dogs offer, but humans less so. But dogs can also be scary, we can see them as vectors for disease, or as vicious dogs. In a way, these are some of the themes the film is about: the fundamental need to be loved, and our loneliness, which are two sides of the same coin.  

It’s an almost ontological solitude.
Yes, it’s a little bit sad, for sure, but my father always told me that we’d all be alone in the face of death anyway. Maybe these are generalities, but I think that we are fundamentally social beings, we seek contact with others, and at the same time, “hell is other people.” How can we reconcile all of that? Something, a dog can be a refuge in the face of this paradox, a companion that is easier to live with. It’s very rare for a dog to contradict you! And it gives you the same affection no matter your status.

Why did you choose to unfold this reflection through three narrative movements?
I was fascinated by Jia Zhang-ke’s A Touch of Sin, and what I found particularly remarkable about it was that at the end of each segment, a character would bring us to the next one, like in a relay race. He had also assigned a different cinematic genre to each part of the film, and I thought that was a very exciting challenge. I wanted to make it so that the three parts interlocked, all the while being three distinct chapters in this story. And I wanted to try my hand at three genres: an offbeat, wild comedy with a dose of horror, which I had already approached on in my previous films; a moral tale, and a social critique, which I had only touched on before; and finally a romantic comedy that was a little more naturalistic, which really took me far away from what I had done previously. I had to tame my fear of falling into pathos, which I had so far always neutralised with humour. Here, I wanted to let the emotion in. 

Humour is a link between the three stories, a perspective on the world that allows you to show some things that are rather difficult.
We often talk about the politeness of despair, and that’s even more the case with dark humour, which deals with tragic things such as death, illness, and solitude. The posture when faced with something that moves us, upsets us, or makes us feel anxious, is to try to laugh about it without being mocking, without downplaying the distress. It’s a way of asking ourselves questions, even when we don’t have the answers. Humour has a therapeutic dimension for me. The ship is sinking, let’s try to laugh about it, it will at least help us to pass that time in a less painful way.