Very interesting interview indeed, few (not really useful) takeaways from this.
I wasn't familiar with the guy and realized i already watched 3 of his 4 films.... i'm getting old.
For some reasons i don't particularly think he's a nice guy
His knowledge of eastern europe old obscure movies is super impressive
He's one of the first cinephile directors who doesn't seem to have any interest in French cinema, especially Nouvelle vague.
He's a very interesting guy to listen to.
Artsy types can be among the most obtuse, self-involved & obnoxious people you'll ever meet. But mostly he just seems obsessed with his art. Laser-focused, especially on an amalgam of folk traditions and horror. Nevertheless, he's far more interesting than Nolan, Villeneuve and even Cronenberg, who all mostly stick to rather obvious stuff in their talks.
For esoteric French horror, I think of Jean Epstein's silent classic, La chute de la maison Usher ... plus any number of soft-core but oddly poetic Jean Rollin films from the 1970s, especislly La rose de fer ... and Season 1 of Les revenants.
Recently ... rewatched PCW's Stoker, maybe not his best but still pretty good ... saw a 35 mm screening of Heat in Dolby Surround, which was just incredible, maybe the greatest crime film of all time ... and caught up with the new Mike Leigh movie, Hard Truths, which is grimly funny but undeniably moving, like much of his work.
