My stupid ambition is to make a film that's not like any other - one that has its own kind of logic and hooks viewers without making them think too much. It's a film I'd love to see, one in which after 10 minutes the audience isn't able to predict the whole thing.

I try to turn a place on film into a mental state. I always have three or four locations that I repeat and return to in a film, to make it more mythic. But my fiction films are relatively subjective stories, experienced though one character. And that always justifies a little stylisation in terms of landscape.

The problem with shooting in Paris is, it's been shot to death. When you're in it, you already think you're in a movie, so how do you get away from that feeling, and give some frisson to the viewer?

Pawel Pawlikowski Quotes