Day Moibi interviews director Melanie Charbonneau and actress Noemie Yelle about their latest film, Single, which is part of ShortFusion: Glass Ceiling. 

Day Moibi: What was the driving force behind this project?

Marie Charbonneau: The writer and I have the same agent in Montreal, and he sent me two of his short films. When I read them I saw that we like the same things, the same topics, the same themes, with one of them being how technology is changing human relationships. We start with Single, the first one, about how social networks are changing break-up situations, and we kind of have the same dark sense of humour. Now we’re working on our second short film, about two women who put a video camera in a retirement home to look after their mother, because they think she’s being molested. However, they find out that it’s not about that at all and they see other things. We like to explore those themes together.

DM: – What got you involved in the project?

Noemie Yelle: Well, the fact that every girl has experienced that kind of loneliness and that kind of break up situation. It was a sad situation, but funny at the same time. When I read the script I thought, “Oh yeah, that’s me!”.

MC: By the time we started pre-production, I shot a commercial earlier that year, with the lead actress doing improv and it was just so hilarious. Then when we thought of casting, I thought of her and realised she was perfect for the role. From that moment on we got on so well, because we both have experienced being lonely and being single. I really wanted to show that intimate moment of being a  women in your empty apartment, trying to figure things out, trying to feel better, and just laugh about doing things like light therapy. Like, she trying to feel better, she’s going to psychologists, she’s doing light therapy, she’s trying to fix her internet, she’s trying to do all things, but in the end she just doesn’t want to be single, she’s her way of saying, “Help me!”. She wants to be able to tell people she’s sad, and wants to be loved.

DM: It’s the same with social media. When you have no messages and you look at your phone you sometimes just think, “Nobody loves me”. We’re constantly seeking attention. 

NY: Yeah, it’s amazing how social media is ruling some people’s lives. Some people even erase photos because they don’t have enough ‘likes’. Just, wow. Like with a break up, when a guy leaves you for another girl, it hurts so bad.

MC: And seeing everyone like that picture is even worse. That’s why we have this scene when she calls the best friend saying, “Why did you like that picture?! Why didn’t you think of me?!” But it’s a good picture, so why shouldn’t they? That’s what we’re doing, not putting so much importance on the impact of a ‘like’ on somebody else.

DM: This film is bitterly tragic and hilarious at the same time. Is this your personal reflection on singledom?

NY: Oh yeah, totally!

MC: Actually, I feel like the film was preemptive on my own life, because I had a boyfriend when we shot it, but now we’ve broken up. That got me thinking about the movie, the girl alone in her apartment, and I thought, “Oh my God.. this is my life!” Hopefully, my ex-boyfriend is not on Facebook, so I wont see what he’s doing. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s still about trying to recover and rebuild my life now.

We had so much fun shooting the scene with the psychologist, because I really like how she did it. I have seen psychologists, and I wanted to be on that level with the actors. It’s really close to me, because you really get to see how she’s thinking.

DM – Social media is the only true form of connection that Annie gets in the film. Is this how you feel we interact with the world now?

MC: I’m really into building real relationships with people, and trying to be honest. But, i think in the movie, we just wanted to show a different side of it. I always say we want to make people think and laugh, and having an ending that’s kind of pathetic let’s people think about their relationships, and how they relate to social media.

I often see the bad side to it too. Like how we were saying earlier, people are showing themselves in a curated way. Even if you’re deeply sad, you can just post of picture of yourself looking very happy. I think what we wanted to ask is how far will she go to make people think about her? And her accident, did you think that the accident was on purpose or did you think it was a real accident?

DM – I didn’t think it was a cry for help, I thought it was one of those cases where she just didn’t care for herself.

MC: That was the purpose of the film. She didn’t mean for the accident to happen, she just wanted so much attention and didn’t care for herself that it just happened to her. When I first read the script I thought that it was trying to imply that she meant it. But I think its exactly what you said; when you want something to happen but you would not go that far for it, and then it happens. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad.

NY: I once told a therapist that I wanted to just shut down and be in a hospital so everyone will take care of me, and she responded by telling me not to say that out loud because it could end up happening. She told me not to call it.

DM – In recent years there has been a bigger playground for the interpersonal dialogue of women’s lives to be explored more. Is this something that you’re trying to aim for in your projects?

MC: Yeah, absolutely. Throughout my twenties this is something I’ve always wanted to make movies about. I knew that I had things to say but it was never clear to me. Now I think my voice is talking about women’s reality that isn’t always shown in movies, but in more of a comedic way.

In too many films we see these women that are too perfect; perfect lives, perfect hair, perfect mums. I like imperfection. I want to portray women that are making decisions and being proactive and trying new things. This is what I’m trying to do in my next short film and also a feature I worked on which is about three girls in their twenties that are starting an internship for a company. It’s just about the beginning of their lives, you know when you switch from being a student to going to work and you’re whole life is changing; you need to pay bills, you have boyfriends, you get chlamydia, and you have no idea what’s happening in your life. This is what we want to focus on; that period of switching into a new phase of your life. Our main purpose is to show women finding peace with their lives that doesn’t purely revolve around finding love, they start single and end single. We want them to evolve in their own way and make their own decisions.

DM – So many films end when the women find love, their entire lives revolve around these men. Especially in those films directed and written by men who are trying to write about being a woman. How do you get down those ideas of what it’s like to be a woman on page?

MC: The fun thing is that the write of ‘Single’ is a man, but he is so good at writing female characters. He’s very good at depicting women and the way they are. The film isn’t just a woman’s voice, it’s a mix of voices from men and women and it’s good to have this balance in film making.

DM: There’s this quote from Heidegger; “The most thought provoking thing in our thought provoking time is that people are still not thinking”, I was wondering what you thought of this quote in relation to your film? 

MC: We’re adapting to technologies so quickly that we aren’t thinking about how it’s changing us and this is what we are exploring. I think cinema needs to question technology more often, since it itself was once a new technology. We need to question these technologies as we adopt them instead of instantly accepting it and letting it change our lives so much.