The clue to Geoffrey Lachassagne’s documentary, inspired by US novelist William Faulkner, lies in its title. The film (screening in VdR Burning Lights Competition) is called Apocryphal County. Faulkner was a fabulist who didn’t always stick to the truth. He was one of the great American writers of the 20th Century but wasn’t necessarily one you could trust as a reliable storyteller.
In the documentary, Lachassagne maps out Yoknapatawpha County, the mythical rural Mississippi landscape on which Faulkner’s tales played out. The French director performs certain narrative sleights that are entirely in keeping with the work of his subject.
“It started with my tendency to make up stories. A friend of mine handed me one of Faulkner’s books, ‘Light In August’, telling me that my stories reminded him of that guy. Most of my stories were about the part of France I come from, [in the] south-west. I started reading Faulkner and discovering that this guy was actually talking about us…it was something I had never felt in French literature. Faulkner managed to capture something which rang true about my own country although he was speaking about a country with such a different history and situation.”
Having started with ‘Light in August’, Lachassagne read all of Faulkner. He was heartened to discover a few very prominent French writers, among them Pierre Michon and Pierre Bergounioux, who shared his passion for the American novelist. Like him, they felt Faulkner was describing their world and their lives.
Early on in Apocryphal County, we see an image of Faulkner. As the director acknowledges, it’s possible the image may not be of Faulkner but of his close friend and drinking companion, Dashiell Hammett, author of ‘The Maltese Falcon.’ The two men look very alike, with the same moustaches and the same thin, aquiline features. Is the director deceiving the audience?
In the film, Lachassagne carefully researches Faulkner-land and visits key point at which major incidents in the Faulkner novels played out. Following the GPS map co-ordinates, he turns up in people’s kitchens or in fields and forests. Sharp-eyed observers may notice that the Mississippi shown in Apocryphal Country is remarkably similar to the rugged rural landscapes of the south-west of France.
“Sometimes, it was totally anti-climactic because there was nothing to do with what Faulkner had announced, but I had to find out what kind of story the place was telling you,” the director reflects on his Quixotic journey around the Faulkner landmarks.
However, there were positive encounters too. Yoknapatawpha County has its own saw mill. When Lachassagne visited the location on the map where the saw mill was supposed to be based, he found…a real-life saw mill whose employees were happy to pose for the camera.
The philosophical point the documentary makes is that if you are looking hard enough for Faulkner, you’ll always find him, wherever you go. “I could have shot this film anywhere and still have found Faulkner,” Lachassagne declares. He talks about “leaving room for the viewers.” They can decide for themselves how deeply they want to be drawn into the make-believe world he is conjuring up.
The film frequently verges on the surreal. The prison in Yoknapatawpha looks remarkably like a makeshift garden shed. An inhabitant living in one of the houses in Faulkner country turns out to have a beautifully maintained Harley Davidson motorbike – not a vehicle which makes an appearance in any of the novels. He is also an ace guitarist and insists on playing a song for the director.
Among the people the filmmaker visited, there was “absolutely zero knowledge” of Faulkner. He had to explain to them what his project was about. Once they had heard, they were all sympathetic and ready to be photographed.
Through today’s perspective, Faulkner’s views on racism and slavery are deeply problematic. Lachassagne doesn’t even attempt to apologise or excuse the author’s prejudices. If there has been a backlash against Faulkner in recent years, he argues that “it has probably been deserved. He [Faulkner] was very ambiguous and very often contradictory. In some interviews, he would be, like, very humanist and denounce slavery as the original sin of the South…and yet, he was a man of his time and of his place. He had a way of looking at Black people, Afro-American people, that was sometimes terrible and that we can’t accept any more. His books are full of that. I really could not ignore that part of him.”
Lachassagne sees his documentary as having a secondary purpose of looking at the legacy of colonialism in France itself. “We are talking about what the United States did in their own territory but basically it is what France did too…in a way still does, in New Caledonia for example.”
The director has made several films in New Caledonia, in the South Pacific. He sees clearly parallels between the colonial injustices there and events in Yoknapatawpha County.
Faulkner, then, is a very tarnished idol for the director. But that doesn’t mean that Lachassagne has turned away from him. “I love Faulkner for what he tried, his narrative attempts are just fascinating, his voice also. But you do have to read it critically…I read a lot of Faulkner in the US. When you read it in France, it can seem far away but when you read it in the US…the violence of the experience is even more acute.”
Apocryphal County had its world premiere in Nyon earlier this week. It was made through Paris-based Triptych Films.
