Jess lanai

I’d never thought about Switzerland, it just existed somewhere in my mind.

I collected all these little facts from indirect remarks or knowledge that kind of clumped together to form Switzerland.

Swiss alps. Swiss chocolate. Switzerland. Where it’s cold and they speak Swiss and I think they also make watches. That was my collection of associations with Switzerland.

They actually speak Italian in Switzerland. And French. And German.

La blessure la vraie is a book I never read. It’s French. I thought more about France than Switzerland but that’s not saying much.

But. This French director was making a movie based on this book. And I’d met him once for an audition for a film he never made.

He decided to be pretty radical and he brought me from America to France and cast me in a part I didn’t remotely fit. I was actually so wrong for the part that he had to change the entire character.

Then he decided to be even more radical and he changed the title of the film from La blessure to Mektoub. La blessure means the wound in French. And Mektoub is the Arabic word for fate.

Things kept getting more radical and the director decided to turn what was supposed to be one movie into two movies.

I wasn’t in the first film but I didn’t care because it premiered in at the Venice film festival in 2017. Have you ever been to Venice? It looks like a place that wasn’t meant to exist. Like someone just made it up.

The director got even more radical. He decided he didn’t have enough footage. Which was fine for me because it means I went back to Europe and we filmed for another six months.

Things got even more radical because the director decided two movies should be three movies actually.

I also wasn’t in Mektoub intermezzo but I didn’t care because it premiered at the Cannes film festival in 2019. I’d been to Cannes so many times at that point that it was like going home.

What I love most about Cannes is it’s brutal. Watching a film premiere in Cannes is the best because people aren’t polite they are reactive.

If they like the film they will applaud and cheer. If they don’t they will stand up and boo.

I was in the theater watching the screen fade off of intermezzo feeling like a bus just hit me because the film was so intense and the background noise is about a 50/50 split of cheering and booing.

Sublime experience.

Abdellatif Kechiche fell to ruin. Mektoub intermezzo got buried in controversy and bankruptcy. It was never released. Shown only that one time in Cannes.

The film I was in, Mektoub Canto Due, was still being edited. About once or twice a year someone would call me and tell me Canto Due will finally premiere.

Sometimes they’d tell me it might go to Venice. I heard Cannes a lot. I heard it would go to Berlin one year.

Eight years later at the Locarno film festival of 2025 it actually turned out to be true.

When I arrived in Locarno a lot of people had already seen Mektoub. I hadn’t seen it yet. I had some general ideas of how I thought the film would be.

I knew my part in it would be significant because they’d bothered to fly me from America to freaking Switzerland.

People did stop me in the street and did congratulate me on a film I hadn’t seen yet. Which was a pretty cool experience. To be praised for the acting I did eight years ago on a film I hadn’t even seen yet.

One older Italian lady that was walking her chihuahua stopped me to applaud my vulnerability in the film.

I think I cocked my head so far I had one ear pointing to the sky and the other to the ground.

I knew I hadn’t been vulnerable in Mektoub. I knew I hadn’t been because I’d never worried about my performance. I hadn’t ever worried how people would receive my performance. I hadn’t even ever worried whether or not I’d be in the film.

Not in the entire eight years of waiting for that film.

My detachment in relation to my success with Mektoub is something I’ve been paying attention to.

Because there is something to it. Some kind of secret ingredient that should be discovered and shared.

It’s not that I don’t care. I cared a lot. I love the people in Mektoub, I’d have gone to war for them.

The entire experience of making Mektoub was incredible.

But yes, I was totally detached from it and the reason why is the outcome I wanted from doing the Mektoub film I’d already received.

I got to do all the things I wanted to do.

I’d already gotten to stay in Europe.

I’d gone to Venice, Sundance, I went to Cannes every year nearly the entire time and sponged off the friends I’d made from doing Mektoub.

They got me into see all the films. Got me into all the parties. And anytime my presence was questioned all they had to say was oh she’s in the Kechiche film that isn’t out yet.

I had nothing left to want from my role in Mektoub. So I had no anxieties within it. I had no anticipation that was related to myself. I cared for the film because I cared for the other people involved in it. But myself and my identity had already been satisfied, the only additional things I saw to gain from Mektoub was more trips.

More film festivals. More free fancy dinners. (I love free fancy dinners being paid for by a company. It’s the best)

There are of course things my vulnerability is quite attached to.

Things that will ignite a large emotional response in me because my need of them and lack of them is so great that I cannot control myself.

But what I’ve noticed is people confuse purpose and vulnerability.

I don’t need to be vulnerable to have purpose.

The most vulnerable I’ve ever been was when I was a cigarette smoker.

That’s the real trouble with addictions. They put you in a constant state of vulnerability.

Because dependence is vulnerability.

I was entirely dependent on having cigarettes and being able to smoke those cigarettes.

But the most fascinating thing about my need to smoke was it had very little to do with the nicotine.

What’s so dangerous about addictions isn’t the substance it’s what the substance treats.

I used cigarettes to calm myself. To feel rewarded. To have my bouts of deep thought. To sneak away for time alone.

My need for cigarettes was tied to real needs that were being so neglected that it made me feel like I was in constant pain.

When I felt uncomfortable, I smoked. When I felt agitated I smoked. When I needed to think I smoked. And thus the symptoms got a pain killer but the cause kept taking damage.

People constantly tell me it’s amazing that I quit nicotine because it’s so hard to do. No it’s not.

It’s easy to quit.

But neglecting your own dire needs is almost impossible without your pain killer.

It’ll be a lot harder to walk on a broken leg without that morphine.

Vulnerability has two ingredients. The first is the need. It’s real. It’s instinctual. You cannot help but react to a need.

The second part of vulnerability is the void. Where we are lost in our heads anticipating all the possibilities on when and how our needs might be satisfied.

When I want a cigarette and I associate getting a rest, getting a reward, getting my own time and space with that cigarette and then I don’t get that cigarette, I will react and I will react violently.

The last couple years is when I’ve done most of my maturing and I’d always considered my younger self to be impulsive, extremely emotional, extremely selfish and even more lazy.

Watching myself in the Mektoub film that’d done eight years ago as my most immature self was an interesting experience. Because I didn’t see what I thought I’d see.

I didn’t see someone who was impulsive or lazy or even emotional (but I was emotional) I saw only how brave I was.

That I wasn’t insane I was just really tough. I wasn’t lazy I was lost. I wasn’t impulsive I was panicked.

I was running around on broken limbs taking a few pain killers and powering through.

That’s what most young people are doing. They have this huge well of wants and needs with no idea how to distinguish them let alone satisfy them.

Why did I do so well in Mektoub? Because I was working from purpose not from my vulnerability.

And my purpose was light. It was made of gratitude, enjoyment and challenge.

All my real vulnerabilities were tied up in being in love and in cigarettes.

And my love life, the thing I actually needed and was truly vulnerable with, failed miserably.

Most people would consider writing to be a vulnerable act.

It used to be, as all things are when we are struggling to learn something we’re not good at.

So many things can affect our confidence and when confidence dwindles so does enjoyment.

I have protected my confidence and my security with writing by removing my needs from it.

I don’t use writing to get approval. I don’t use it to have enough money. I don’t use it to feel right.

It’s a personal tool. It’s enjoyment. It’s challenge. It’s a purpose that is not attached to a vulnerability.

The most vulnerable thing I’ve ever had, and I think what is most vulnerable for most people, is my love life.

I spent many years of my life not dating at all. Not having any sex or any hope.

Because I was too terrified of the void. Of the place where I feel like I need something so badly and have to anticipate it failing.

But after maturing as much as I have and then watching Mektoub and gaining some perspective I’ve realized that vulnerability is relative.

It can be detached and placed in more appropriate places.

I can attach my needs to things I have more control of.

What I like most about writing is it has a rhythm. The rhythm is what I’m trying to learn.

People process the rhythm more than they process the words.

The best books have that flow to them and I’ll find myself interested even if i don’t care for the subject.

Learning that flow does not require my vulnerability. It only requires my interest.

One of the cruelest things human beings do to themselves is try to operate under a thousands pounds of cognitive strain.

We try to be so successful at everything before even identifying our own dire needs.

The other cruel thing we do to ourselves is be vulnerable with the things we need and can’t afford to lose.

Don’t give something 110% of yourself unless you’re trying to avoid death.