Xavier Gens, who was born the year Steven Spielberg released Jaws, says he made a subversive film about sharks.
Warning, spoilers! This article returns to the plot of the film Sous la Seine. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know what it contains, don’t read any further.
With Sous la Seine, Xavier Gens creates a shark film which, according to him, is the antithesis of Hollywood standards, playing on the codes of the genre to better divert them. Made for Netflix, this aquatic thriller features a large mutant mako shark, evolving in Parisian waters, far from the American beaches which more traditionally serve as a setting for these intrigues.
In an interview for The Hollywood ReporterXavier Gens explains that the idea for this film was born from a desire to offer a metaphor on entertainment and to make an environmental satire.It was a way of paying homage to Jaws, but transforming it into a critique of consumer society and environmental issues.“, he explains. He also explained to AlloCiné that Steven Spielberg’s film had triggered his passion for cinema.
A showbusiness metaphor
The director, known across the Atlantic for his work on Hitman, wanted to use the techniques of Hollywood cinema while adapting them to a darker and more nihilistic French context.In France, we can afford a freedom of tone and a visual audacity that Hollywood would not dare“, he says.
And then, above all, there was the idea of saying, well, we’re also making a metaphor for showbusiness, and ultimately it’s the symbol of the first blockbuster destroying the ultimate blockbuster, the famous Games.
This also results in daring scriptwriting choices, such as killing important characters in the middle of the film, or letting the shark survive at the end, contrasting with the typically Hollywood resolution where the monster is eliminated.
A social critique
Xavier Gens also wanted the shark scenes to be filmed in documentary style, intensifying the immersion of the spectators. “The first ten minutes had to be very intense and immersive“, he explains, wanting the film to have the texture of a blockbuster without adopting its narrative constraints.
Xavier Gens’ anti-Hollywood approach is also evident in the film’s underlying social criticism. Using the Paris Games as a backdrop, he denounces human greed and the disastrous consequences of political and economic decisions centered on profit. “We wanted to show that human greed is at the heart of environmental problems“, he insists.
By mixing satire, horror and social criticism, Sous la Seine thus positions itself for its author as a subversive work, using Hollywood codes to turn them against themselves and offer a reflection on the excesses of our time. And you what do you think ?
Under the Seine is currently available on Netflix.
