In her life-affirming animated short film Lolos (Boobs), Marie Valade weaves together a fantastical tale of an unnamed woman, played by Valade herself, who must reckon with her ever changing new breasts in a surreal land of rotoscopy and paper cut-outs. In the making of Lolos Valade adopted her own unique style of through the influences of fellow animators and experimentation and invites us into her surreal world of visual metaphor which holds onto an essential playful tone while delving into darker themes of body dysmorphia and patriarchy. The result is a personal and profound piece of filmmaking, a bittersweet tapestry woven from Valade’s own feelings and experiences as a woman in a critical and demanding modern day society where breasts evoke a multitude of meanings and symbolism. DN spoke to Valade and discussed her complex and original animation process, digitally sculpting a younger version of herself and the importance of breaking stigmas around breasts.
This is such a layered and unique narrative, depicting a complex love/hate relationship with breasts. Conceptually, where was your starting point and how did this develop?
The starting point of the film was a general feeling I had of being estranged from my breasts, a feeling that originated a long time ago, probably around adolescence. I remember very well that I cried when my breasts started growing, I felt like I was losing control of my own body, that I was becoming a woman faster than I wanted. And all of a sudden, people perceived me and interacted with me so differently. The feeling of not owning my own breasts stayed with me until adulthood and I started to reflect on what breasts mean to society in general, what symbolism they evoke – which is a powerful one with so many different clashing facets to it. For example there is the nurturing breasts of the mother, the alluring breasts of a seductress, the sick breasts of cancer. They are so present in our minds and in our culture, and yet it most of the time, forbidden to be seen or there are a number of set rules as to what part of the breast can be seen and in what context. I thought all of that was oh so weird, I had a big urge to dive deep in the subject, read a lot and make a film about it.
Lolos is aesthetically unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Could you tell us how you developed the film’s visual style?
It took a while to develop the style of the film. At first I attended life drawing sessions to get back into the habit of drawing and I mostly thought of adding in collage to the mix. However, after a rejection letter for the financing of the film, I knew I had to rework the style. I’m actually happy my initial proposal wasn’t accepted since the style wasn’t there yet. When trying to find new ways to draw my characters, I then thought of trying my hand at rotoscope, which I had never used before. I was also advised by a fellow animator Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre to go visit Keyu Chen at the NFB, working on her film Un Printemps (Winds of Spring). Keyu was creating her whole film digitally frame by frame on a drawing tablet. When her rough animation was done, she traced the whole piece with ink on paper placed on top of her device protected by a sheet of translucent material to give the film a beautiful handmade feel.
I also realised while drawing that the light and colors of the live action footage seen through the paper gave the drawing a nice touch and that the texture of the paper added a tactile feel.
The technique inspired me and I started to rotoscope directly on some paper placed on top of a laptop screen since I didn’t own a drawing tablet. After having filmed a quick sequence, I opened it in my laptop, taped an animation pegbar on the screen for a consistent registration of the paper, and I traced frame by frame the figure I saw through the paper. I thought it was pretty convenient not to have to draw a rough animation and then a clean version as is often needed in animation, I was directly creating my clean frames. I also realised while drawing that the light and colors of the live action footage seen through the paper gave the drawing a nice touch and that the texture of the paper added a tactile feel. So I decided to photograph my drawings with their corresponding live action images underneath.
With such a complicated, multi-layered animation process, were there any sequences that were particularly challenging?
A sequence at the end of the film involves a little girl, the supposed child of the character I was playing, and it was particularly challenging. It would have been convenient to shoot some live action with a comedian, however I realized it would have been too difficult to find a girl who looked like me and also to orchestrate a whole shoot with a kid. I then decided to shoot the sequence with myself as the little girl, and to modify my features digitally to sculpt a younger version of me frame by frame, with a kid’s face proportions, bigger eyes, smaller chin, etc. The modified footage looked really weird as is, but when traced over with ink, I was pleasantly surprised by how forgiving the drawings were. The process was a bit risky but in the end it enabled me to create this brand new child character.
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The film leans into darker topics of patriarchy and body dysmorphia but never loses its playful tone. How did you keep the right balance?
I guess having a playful tone around not so funny topics is just part of how I approach things in life in general. I like dark and absurd humour, and there is a tradition in my family to laugh about rough times, it’s a learned mechanism of how we deal with these. Some things in life are just so weird and we can feel so powerless sometimes, the only thing left for us to do is to laugh about it! I think humor can be quite useful in giving us a perspective shift, or a sense of control over what feels oppressing so I knew I had to include a playful aspect in my film.
There’s no dialogue, the emotion comes from atmospheric sound design alongside the visuals. How did you work with Sacha Ratcliffe to create such an emotive soundscape?
I had such a great time working with Sacha! I think she really understood me and the project, and I had complete faith in her style since I already loved her work. We mostly discussed the emotional arc, what was the intention of each scene and what I wanted the viewer to understand from each moment and she did an amazing job at translating that into sound and music. We would discuss the moments that should feel light, the dark ones, the funny ones. We also decided on what scenes were closer to a real world feel and which ones were going crazy in a fictional and dream kind of world. She even used her own voice throughout the film to give it a human presence even if there wasn’t any dialogue. I am very pleased with our collaboration. We often say a film is 50% image and 50% sound, but we could argue the sound is even more important than that. Without a proper soundtrack it is very hard to make the feelings and meaning emerge out of a film.
We mostly discussed the emotional arc, what was the intention of each scene and what I wanted the viewer to understand from each moment and she did an amazing job at translating that into sound and music.
One of the most memorable images compares the protagonist’s breasts to caged birds. How did this gorgeous visual come to you?
I don’t remember precisely how that image came to me. But I was reading a lot and also taking tons of notes and I would frantically write down every visual metaphor I encountered about breasts and all the images that came to mind. When I thought I couldn’t add more to my inspiration collection, I then wrote a story tying the most interesting metaphors together. Alongside the writing I was also doodling, and getting inspired visually as well.
I’m not sure if the breasts caged birds came first in drawing or in writing, or maybe even in a dream, but what is for sure is that the image very much encapsulated my feeling of being trapped in my own body.
I particularly liked Marion Fayolle’s style, which is very much in the line of the surrealist kind of drawings I wanted. So I’m not sure if the breasts caged birds came first in drawing or in writing, or maybe even in a dream, but what is for sure is that the image very much encapsulated my feeling of being trapped in my own body. A bird in a cage is often used as a symbol of dreaming of freedom, and two cages seen on the horizontal pretty much look like boobs, so I came up with these hybrid caged bird boobs. The cages are also like a bra in the film, and the character willingly puts it on. So as an added interpretation, it also symbolizes self-imprisonment.
Since the Lolos‘s wider release, and garnering a Vimeo Staff Pick, how have you found the reception of the film?
I’m very happy with how it managed to travel so much, and that is thanks to the amazing work of La Distributrice de Films distributing the work. What is the most interesting about the reception are the conversations, mostly happening in private, that I’ve had with people about breasts. Some mothers told me they recognized themselves in the breastfeeding part, some told me about their own insecurities around their breast, and also about their own pride. Some also opened up around a surgery about to happen or about having to go through breast cancer. I also remember one person saying he didn’t know about the internal struggles women can live with around their breasts and that it made him want to talk to women about the subject. I was very fortunate to be the receiver of such vulnerable conversations. I think I made the film in order to be able to talk about taboos surrounding breasts in the first place. If the film can make people reflect, have empathy for what others are living and start conversations, it makes my whole work on this film worth it.
You’ve worked on such a beautiful array of animated work, could you tell us what you’re working on now?
At the moment I am back at freelancing as an animator, working mostly in stop motion and also in rotoscopy, after having worked in film distribution for about 2 years. I really enjoyed distributing short films around the world but I felt an urge to go back to my animation love, as I just adore the feeling of being in the zone, this special level of concentration close to meditation we get when we are deep in our work. I am collecting ideas for a new potential film of mine, but I haven’t decided on any subject or direction yet. I’m simply collecting what pops up as funny, interesting or quirky in my mind or in my life and I’m still not sure if anything will come out of it. There is truly no pressure. I’ll make a new film if I feel an intense need to focus on a subject for a few years, as animation is so time consuming. In the meantime, I’m getting a real perspective shift on my film and putting my boobs to good use as I am now a mother and breastfeeding my son. I can now say being food is quite a transformative experience. As I look back, maybe making Lolos was a way for me to try to prepare for the changes that come with motherhood?
