At first, I wanted to make Titanic II. It's a story of an iceberg coming to New York and destroying New York harbor. Just at the last minute, when the iceberg is attacking the island of Manhattan, the hero of the movie melts the iceberg with the flame of the statue of liberty.

Could you please get back to your film?

I got in the habit of lying most of the time. I seem more credible this way, as if I were telling the truth. The more unlikely my lies are, the more reliable I seem to be. And the nice thing about lies is that they do not concern me personally. In the movies this is different. If you tell a story about a girl who melts in water, everyone thinks itÕs an incredible story. In the movies you can say what you really think and get away with it.

What do you really think ?

The world seems fairly incomprehensible to me and I try to simply start by asking questions. I don't think problems are never new so I turn to ancient Greece and pre-socratic philosophy. The fundamental problem of that era was the question of the primal substance. Thales was the first to take water as the elemental basis from which other substances are declined. I tried to follow this reasoning. That's why Mary dissolves in water. She reverts to her initial state of being. I believe in magic. So that others might better understand this belief, I attribute magic with a simple cause: Mary dissolves in water because Mary is made of soap.

The main subject of the ancient Greek culture, the myth of the gods, is not a subject of your film.

Exactly. I substitued the gods of antiquity with the story of Jesus Christ, which is closer to today's culture. Mary is the Virgin Mary, who ascends to heaven with her whole body. Only her garment remains on earth. Joe is Joseph, her husband, who wants to enjoy her, but canÕt. He is jealous of Henry, who is none other than god. An angel slides a postcard under the door. Of course, god, as I understand him, has the features of Zeus. He pretends to be someone else in order to pick up women. In any case, Mary remains immaculate. And since she is made out of soap, even under the shower with Joe, everything stays clean.

And you take all this seriously ?