Writer/director
Laetitia Colombani says:
"When
I was at the Ecole Louis Lumière, I chose the theme of
madness in cinema for my thesis.
The idea for this film sprung from that experience...
"In
the initial draft, the first part about Audrey was quite long,
the second part concerning Samuel was short, followed by an even
shorter epilogue. I realized a better balance between the first
two parts was needed in order for the film to truly be "bi-polar,"
like two sides of the same coin, knowing the two parts were quite
different...
"Each
part presented unique difficulties. In the first part, which could
have been called "Angélique or Passion and Energy",
all the clues to the intrigue had to be incorporated in such a
way as to not make them too obvious to the audience. No one knows
yet if this is a suspense film. The risk in using this approach
was having the beginning of the film be too classical, almost
like a banal love story, because we don't understand the importance
of each element. The solution to avoid that was to make it very
lively, very fast, to allow me to slip in my clues."
The
film is about Erotomania
Erotomania
can be defined as a psychological disorder in which the afflicted
relentlessly pursues the notion that the object of his/her affection
reciprocates his/her romantic feelings and/or fantasies. This
obsession with the desired individual continues long after that
individual has asserted that he/she is not interested in pursuing
a romantic relationship with the afflicted. Consequently, erotomaniacs
tend to stalk their victims. It has been postulated that those
who stalk suffer from a basic fault in their capacity to have
relationships with others. (Lipson et al., 1998).
Though
brought to light with the Tarasoff case, Erotomania continues
to be considerably new in the literature and consequently little
research has been done to suggest any consistent hypothesis as
to causality. Characteristic of the erotomaniac (generally across
the board) are the following: irrationality, a tendency toward
impulsive actions, obsessiveness, paranoia, psychotic tendencies.
Typically the erotomaniac shares certain behavioral characteristics
consistent with that of a Borderline.
The
erotomaniac tends to begin with simple, subtle expressions of
affection to reach the object of his/her desire which later spirals
out of control and can lead to expressions of anger, rage, frustration
and violence when such gestures go ignored and the victims continues
to assert lack of interest. Strangely the erotomaniac fails altogether
to see the victim's lack of interest. The erotomaniac attributes
lack of positive response to a litany of things.
Finally,
the erotomaniac is psychotic and no longer in reality. Any reaction
from the victim can be construed as a signal of approval. Returning
to the case of my stalker, Louise believed the act of my boyfriend
taking a restraining order out against her was somehow indicative
of encouragement to continue to call and visit him and so she
did continue, persisting even after countless arraignments, community
service and jail time.
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excerpted from www.angelfire.com
