MUSIC ART FASHION CULTURE
For Hyun Lee, making French Girls was not about confidence. It was about learning to trust a delusional belief that the film would exist before there was any evidence that it could.
Set in a nondescript inner city Sydney, French Girls follows young people caught between ambition and survival, dreaming of artistic fulfilment while navigating the realities of rent, jobs they do not love, and the uncertainty of finding their place in the world.
At the centre of it is Mia, who is floating through life: dating a small-time scammer, killing time in front of screens, working a menial job in construction. When the chance arises to trade hi-vis for high fashion, she reluctantly falls into modelling. The film explores the strange contradiction of pursuing a creative life: the beauty of having dreams alongside the often humiliating and absurd process of trying to make them happen.
For Hyun, this tension became the foundation of the film. French Girls approaches the struggle of making a living with both honesty and lightness, recognising the tragedy of having to compromise your passions while finding humour in the universal experience of trying to build a life around what you love.
Ahead of its MIFF premiere, I spoke with Hyun about tarot, creative faith, and why sometimes the only way to make something is to begin before anyone believes it can exist.
Ellie: Did making your first feature require a leap of faith, the way The Fool does? Did it change your relationship with the unknown?
Hyun: Oh my gosh, you have no idea. I'm naturally quite risk-averse, especially financially. I've been freelancing my whole life. I'd pitched French Girls so many times and got rejected over and over. Eventually I just started shooting with Mia, our lead actor. We didn't even know yet we were making a feature.
Around that time friends kept reading my tarot, and every time, The Fool would come up. More than three times in a row. It was uncanny. I also kept pulling The World. There was something about the beginning and the end of a journey that felt so synchronistic I couldn't ignore it.
Ellie: Do you feel like, because it kept appearing, you just had to embrace the leap?
Hyun: Totally. I always think of The Fool standing on the edge of the cliff with the little dog. For me, the dog is my cat, Potato. She's in the film. She's a star. It really did feel like me and Potato stepping off the edge together.
Ellie: How did you handle moments of doubt while filming?
Hyun: Strangely, I didn't have many. We had plenty of moments where it felt like the whole thing might collapse, but I carried this delusional belief that it would somehow work out. I think that's The Fool's energy, being willing to look foolish before anyone else believes in what you're doing.
As a woman director, I often felt scepticism from people. I'd say I was making a feature and they'd ask if I had funding, a crew, someone helping me. There was this assumption that maybe I was just delusional. Now the film exists, people say, we always knew you could do it. It's funny how quickly people rewrite history.
Ellie: Was there ever a moment you wanted to prove them wrong?
Hyun: Not really. I just had this quiet feeling of, it's okay, we'll show you. 'You'll See' was Sydney Film Festival's tagline that year, and I kept seeing it everywhere. Not in an angry way. Just, I get it, it doesn't seem possible. But it is.
Ellie: You made the film over roughly a year of shooting and three years total, mostly on weekends. Has patience become an underrated creative skill?
Hyun: I'm a massive advocate for being patient, doing nothing, worrying about things at a meditative pace. I'm very averse to that stressy work culture. On microbudget films you have to be flexible for your crew, especially when they're not getting paid.
Sometimes the delays felt like curses, because it was taking so much longer than we'd hoped. But looking back, there were always blessings in disguise. The delays give you time to reflect and make things better.
Hyun: Some people watch the film and think I'm trying to satirise the fashion industry, which, I'm not not doing. But I also wanted to show it in a way that was realistic for people who work in it. It's not filled with drama every day. For the most part it's quite an ordinary job, chit-chat and all.
Despite the narratives about the industry being toxic, I experienced a lot of older people looking out for younger models, not dramatically, just humanly. I wish I could've cast more of the older, wiser people, but they're usually the ones with kids and not available. Regrettably, everyone's really young in the film, but I wanted to show the full gamut. The superstars, and the more anonymous ones, who are stars in a different way, because of their talent, not how they look.
Ellie: Has empathy become a more radical creative position than criticism?
Hyun: I don't know if it's radical. It's always been a thing. My favourite artists and writers tend to be more empathetic than critical. I prefer a worldview that sees things with a bit of neutrality, not to say we should be complacent in the face of injustice, but the mainstream criticism of fashion is that it's a commercialised heap of exploitation. I think of it more anthropologically: everyone wears clothes the way everyone eats food, but fashion cops a scrutiny the food industry doesn't. Even capitalism, I think of as part of human culture. It has negative elements, but so does nature, and nature isn't always pretty either.
Hyun: I wish I had something really cool and cultured to say, but honestly, what's ticking a box for me right now is animal psychic reels, people talking about psychic sessions with their pets. Dogs are like, we want treats! Whereas cats are like, when I sleep, I travel into other dimensions and speak to entities. Even if it's not real, it's very entertaining.
Ellie: The Fool is card zero, not just a beginning, but the possibility of beginning again. Does this leave you inspired to keep going?
Hyun: For anyone trying to make a movie, have several ready to go, because people ask what's next the second you're done, sometimes before. The next film is a horror film, totally different to French Girls, more research, and a lot more handing my faith over to people who know things I don't.
Horror sets are actually really fun. You laugh so much, because it's ridiculous. No spooky soundtrack, house lights on, and you really feel how silly it all is.
My not-so-secret secret is I don't actually like watching horror. I scare too easily. I have to watch it during the day, lights on, volume low.
Ellie: Is there a scene that became especially meaningful to you after the film was finished?
Hyun: There's a scene where Mia eats a sandwich in public while crying her eyes out, bawling. It was in the script from the start, very ambitious, and Mia had never acted before this. I had backup plans in case she couldn't cry. I told her, no pressure, we'll get an onion and find a way.
On the way to set we passed a Woolworths and she ducked in to grab something. She came back with an onion, because she was nervous and didn't think she could do it for real. She did it in the end, and did it so well. It's the scene I'm most proud of, the most magical. That was the day I realised we'd made something really special. I thought, whoa, this is bigger than us.
You can catch French Girls at MIFF this month. The festival runs from 6 to 23 August.