It's fair to say that an ending like yours leaves more to the imagination, it makes you wonder: Are they going to get together, and if so, when?. It seems a little more realistic. Yes, yes that's what I think too. Life is not so simple. Exactly. I've noticed that many of your films are relationship oriented. Keeping that in mind, what inspired you to write "Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud"? What portion of your personal life have we seen chronicled in your films? You put in details from your own life without actually wanting to do so expressly. But now that the film has been done for seven months, I recognize that I have gone through a lot of the stages described in the film. I've known ennui, I've known misogyny, I've known misanthropy. I've known all of these things from time to time. I've gone through periods where one protects oneself as though one has been living in a fortress. I've known the moments when one is uncertain about everything in life. I've known all of these moments.

Boredom. You portray "boredom" as degrading, something that one feels ashamed of. I never looked at it that way. It is an interesting examination of the word. Everyone knows boredom but nobody talks about it because we are ashamed of it. Only children have the courage to say 'I'm bored.' As soon as Nelly agrees to assist Monsieur Arnaud with the writing of his autobiography, he behaves like a little kid, even though he is highly cultured, and refined. He has found, in her, an antidote to his boredom. But what was interesting in the situation between the two of them is that again, he is seventy years old. At that age boredom becomes mortal...lethal! Yes, one doesn't have much time at that age. And that is the source of his rushed quality, the precipitance of his relationship with Nelly, he's got to get it moving. Which made the film all the more interesting because Nelly wants to take things much slower; she's just divorced a marriage and a dozen odd jobs. She has all the time in the world to rebuild her life and find meaning and satisfaction in it, he doesn't. He wants it all fast, she wants it all slow. The struggle was very absorbing, very savory. You did a superior job conveying this. Thank you. Yes their lives are very discordant in that way. Nelly is living a kind of uncertainty in her life; economically and emotionally. She is very doubtful and anguished about what her future life can be. Monsieur Arnaud is living exactly the opposite.