Holy Cow is such a poignant, authentic teen drama, it was awarded a special, one-off “Youth Prize” at Cannes last year. Co-written and directed by Louise Courvoisier, a 31-year-old filmmaker, the delicate coming-of-ager follows an 18-year-old boy, Totone (Clément Faveau), and a fellow farmgirl, Marie-Lise (Maiwene Barthelemy), as they make mischief, love, and, when time allows it, Comté cheese. Shot in the Jura region, a place where romances occur with four-legged creatures trotting in the background, the rich drama combines gorgeous shots of the French countryside with the raw emotions of its lead actors, both of whom are farmers in real life.
It’s no surprise, then, that Courvoisier is also a part-time farmer herself. “When I’m shooting and editing, it’s hard to balance my two lives,” she tells me on a video call from her house in the Jura, a few days before Holy Cow hit UK cinemas. “But when I’m writing, I do both. It helps me to have a balance between the very physical work of farming, and the more creative work of writing and directing.”
From the opening image of a calf that’s perched on a car’s passenger seat, it’s clear that Holy Cow is shot lovingly by someone who grew up in the area. Born in Geneva and raised in the Jura, Courvoisier attended film school in Lyon and returned to her farming life as an auteur with a specific vision: she already knew that Holy Cow would star first-time actors. “I was obsessed with one subject, and couldn’t concentrate on anything else,” she says. “On paper, it was really the worst project ever: a film about cheese with non-professionals. It had nothing that could be sold!”
Still, Courvoisier was persistent with her ambitions, even when her proposed lead actor, Faveau, refused to star in the film. A poultry farmer by trade, Faveau had little interest in cinema, and only relented when Courvoisier convinced him it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Indeed, Faveau delivers such a powerful, convincing performance as Totone, there’s a docudrama essence to how the director captures his internalised anger and the occasional glimmers of joy in his eye.
“I couldn’t have done the film without actors that come from this area, because we have this specific accent,” says Courvoisier. “Even if you don’t speak the language, you can feel it, just by watching how they move.” You’re also aware, at all points, that Totone is barely an adult. “In the countryside, people work very young, and you decide what your life is going to become very early on. In a city, it comes later – maybe at 25 or so.” She adds: “It’s helped that I’m not much older than the actors. It hasn’t changed that much in 10 years. What I lived and experienced was very close to their life now.”
Introduced as an obnoxious jerk who drinks too much, gets nude in public for a laugh, and smashes glass bottles too readily, Totone undergoes a character shift when his father dies and he’s thrust with the responsibility of single-handedly raising his seven-year-old sister. Learning of a €30,000 cash prize for the best Comté cheese, Totone decides to enter the competition with assistance from friends – and stolen milk from Marie-Lise’s supplies. The plot is a little Adam Sandler-esque, but its execution is grounded by believable, heartfelt performances, as well as Courvoisier showcasing tractors, farmyard creatures, and plenty of dung whenever possible.
Moreover, Holy Cow examines the toxic masculinity that surrounds Totone. “I grew up with a lot of guys in a small village where everybody knew everyone,” says Courvoisier. “I saw that they had this pressure of being the man, and carrying the family. When you don’t succeed, and you’re not good at it, there’s a lot of pressure. I observed how difficult it is for young men to survive in this world. They have this fragile side as well as this violence they have to express – because they don’t know how to express their feelings.”
Courvoisier notes that, in the countryside, people are less likely to visit a therapist than if they live in a city, which is also compounded by the high number of accidents that occur on farms. “We confront death a lot more at a young age,” she says. “It’s not only young people, but it’s everybody. We take it all in, and don’t express ourselves. It’s protection.” Totone thus maintains a stoic, silent exterior when faced with tragedy, but even he can’t hold it all in. “If you don’t express your feelings, it comes out in other ways. Sometimes you fall apart because you’re in front of a girl that doesn’t want you, but you don’t fall apart when your father is dying.”
I observed how difficult it is for young men to survive in this world. They have this fragile side as well as this violence they have to express – because they don’t know how to express their feelings
Courvoisier didn’t ask the actors to watch any films in advance, nor did she send them her previous shorts – she claims the latter would have put them off. Instead, the director encouraged the performers to find their “natural energy” within the characters. “I always told them, ‘Just be yourself.’ I also told them the pressure was on me to make the scene work, not them. When they don’t have pressure, it’s easier. It’s true, we had very difficult scenes, like the sex scenes. It was my responsibility to know their limits, and where they were comfortable.”
The director’s approach evidently worked: as well as the film’s success at Cannes, it won Best First Film and an acting prize for Barthelemy at the César Awards. Without giving away too much, she reveals that she’s facing high expectations for her not-yet-announced second feature. “Cannes was nice because Xavier Dolan, the [Un Certain Regard] jury president, really understood the movie,” she says. “But it’s more important the film works with the audience than having prizes.”
By that, Courvoisier means that Holy Cow is battling stereotypes about French films set in the countryside: they’re usually ‘poverty porn’-style depictions of farmers struggling for survival, or they’re wine-soaked fantasies where everything’s lit too nicely. “I was more interested in the very rough, raw, human part of how farmers live,” says Courvoisier. “In movies, the countryside is seen as very old and not sexy, as a boring place to live. I wanted to show that it’s always moving and dynamic. There’s youth in the countryside!”
Holy Cow is out in UK cinemas on April 11
