PRETENDERS ANONYMOUS By Graeme Black

Djamel Bennecib, 27, French, sits on a lush verandah, with a cappuccino in one hand and a Wall Street Journal in the other. His wistful demeanor, coupled with a sort of childlike, wide-eyed eagerness, bespeaks a certain dedication to his craft and love of cinema. Rubbing his 5 o’clock shadow and staring smoky-eyed at the passing pedestrians, Bennecib is a precise and observant gentleman.

Ask him about his latest project (the sublimely droll web series “The Great L.A. Pretenders”) and he will not fail to describe, in detail, how the culmination of his lifelong experience in film, has produced the sort of “web-com” he would have loved growing up
(as a child in Flers de l’Orne). “The future of entertainment,” proclaims Bennecib “is not television, as more and more people choose Internet over TV... I’m telling you right now: in 5 years, maybe 6, you will see shows as popular as “Lost” created for, and viewable only on the internet.” There is an unmistakable pattern here, seeing as Bennecib has mentioned “Lost” seven times in the past fifteen minutes: “Lost!” screams Bennecib, “is by far, the best show I’ve seen in the past 20 years... and it’s actually a weird, offhanded influence in the way I’ve developed ‘Pretenders’ because we see characters interacting in such a way as if Hollywood were an island. For them, there is only this dream of Hollywood, and they will stop at nothing to realize it. Of course my technique in the way I choose to shoot it is always as cinematic as possible, like “Lost,” you will see in webisode 4 which is called ‘Drunk’” Bennecib chuckles, “I used an extreme close-up of Sherman’s eye. If you pay attention to ‘Lost’, almost every episode uses this close-up to focus the story line from an ensemble piece to one individual for that specific episode. For me...” he goes on (in detail), “It is important to know my influences and pay respects to them, but at the same time, try to make them my own. But I cannot help that I love ‘Lost’ immensely and many other great films like ‘Goodfellas’ and Scorsese films in general.”

Childlike enthusiasm for movies is one of Bennecib’s endearing traits. It cannot be a mistake, that like his contemporary Quentin Tarantino, immeasurable love and knowledge of cinema has proven a very helpful crutch in making fine, well-crafted films.
“Everyone steals from everyone, but as long as it is polite stealing, it is flattering as opposed to pissing off the creators.” The French spin Bennecib seems to be using to coin the term ‘polite stealing’ is another of his quirks that only serves to enrich the wry, offbeat dialogue of “The Great L.A. Pretenders.” “If I had some American writing my show, we would miss a lot of the charm in my Raymond Queneau-esque perspective on
life. So in this sense, we choose style over correctness. I mean, polite stealing is funny, no?”

I tell him it appeals to my own warped-sense of humor, but Djamel Bennecib doesn’t seem to be listening, instead he’s yelling at a lady walking her dog... “Comment vous appelez-vous?!”