Stephen Lance’s first feature film, My Mistress may at first glance appear to be a raunchy film following the affair of a young teen man and a much older lady – but the reality is a more enigmatic, dream-like discovery of what comfort one stranger can offer another.
“It is love, but a type of temporary, healing love,” says Stephen. “I wasn’t after any sort of traditional love story, but something more unusual in their connection which was really about the issues in their life, in the way that Harold and Maude plays out. I was looking for a tender, innocent connection between this damaged boy and this complicated, mysterious woman. Of course, the relationship has its dangerous, sexual side too because the boy is embarking on his first sexual experience, and she is right on the edge of what’s legal and morally right.”
The film in many ways, chose Stephen rather than the other way around. “Mistress had been in my head for years, in different forms. I think with ideas you don’t have much choice, they choose you and won’t let you go. You just march along to their beat, with the idea crystallising along the way, and this is what happened with Mistress. I knew I wanted to make a film about first love with a younger man and an older woman. I knew that I wanted to set it in the suburb I grew up in, The Gap in Brisbane. I knew that I wanted the sexuality to have an allegorical relationship to the emotional world of the story. The characters are each going through some pain in their life, and find solace through their relationship.”
Although the film explores activities at the edge of generally acceptable behaviour – it is also at times restrained, and gentle. “The film has a delicate, spell-like quality to it that is really surprising for some people. I think some people were expecting this graphic, hard, explicit film (especially because cinema has been pushed to such a graphic place now with Blue is the warmest colour), but in fact, my vision was always more focused on the emotional tenderness exchanged between two strangers. I wanted the film to feel like a delicate, unsustainable dream, particularly for the boy. Sort of like Visconte’s Death in Venice or Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
A coup for the film was casting Emmanuelle Béart in the central role. “I was looking for French actresses here, in France, in Los Angeles, all over the place. But I always loved Emmanuelle, so we sent the script off to her agent. We didn’t hear anything for months, then one day we got word that Emmanuelle liked the script and wanted to meet. I had a couple of days to get from Brisbane to Paris to meet with her at her home. It was all very intense and scary, but we bonded right away over Pasolini’s Mama Roma, and talked a lot about the qualities of the mother and son in that film, particularly Anna Magnani’s wardrobe and the way she walked and held herself.
“It’s such a great film, and became a reference for the Maggie character. In person, Emmanuelle had this fragile quality to her, which I really loved. An edginess that I wanted for Maggie, but also a great warmth. You could see the character in her DNA, it was just there. Sort of sexy and open, but hidden at the same time. The way she smoked, or held her little boy, was everything that I wanted for Maggie.”
Australian Actor Harrison Gilbertson was cast opposite Emmanuelle, but as he was in Australia and she in France and the budget didn’t allow for bringing them together – the pair’s chemistry wasn’t tested until filming began. “I just took a leap of faith, and trusted my instincts that they would work together. And they did,” says Stephen.
The multi-faceted character of Maggie (the mistress played by Emmanuelle Béart) is subtly communicated through wardrobe choices. “At certain times in our life, we feel like this because of trauma, grief, love, there’s a heightened awareness of our spaces and how they represent us. So with Maggie, I liked the idea of creating different masks, whether visiting her son, walking to the shops, or just eating a sandwich in her kitchen. She’s never without armour or a persona. Every detail was so important to us, from her shoes to her handbag. With Harrison, it was about taking his ordinary teenage clothes and sexing them up as he begins to open up sexually and emotionally to Maggie. He becomes more vulnerable and so his clothes become more revealing,” explains Stephen.
As for what an audience might take away from the film, Stephen muses: “I think you could say the film is like a dream, or a spell. A love spell. Something that comes over you like a fever, but doesn’t last. A fragile, tender connection that gives the characters some healing for a time, and then goes. I’ve always been interested in unusual love connections in films, whether it’s Harold and Maude, Lost in translation, Murmur of the heart or White Palace.”
