FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | preview: Gaël Morel's Après lui (After Him) |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Tuesday, 01 May 2007 | |
 Catherine Deneuve and Thomas Dumerchez in Gaël Morel's 'Après lui'. Photo (c): Philippe Quaisse / Twentieth Century Fox France, 2007. All rights reserved. In France it is not uncommon for actors to occasionally claim the director’s chair: Gérard Depardieu (Le pont entre deux rives/The Bridge, a segment of the recent Paris, je t’aime), Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi (Il est plus facile pour un chameau.../It’s Easier for a Camel…) and Michel Blanc (Embrassez qui vous voudrez/Summer Things) have all directed films besides their "normal" work as actors. Smaller is the group of actors who made the jump from acting to directing and never looked back: Claude Berri (Ensemble, c’est tout/Hunting and Gathering) comes to mind, one of the eminence grise of French filmmaking, as well as the Young Turk Gaël Morel, who starred in one film (1994’s Roseaux sauvages/Wild Reeds, from André Téchiné) and has since directed four features. The most recent is Après lui (lit. After Him) with local diva Catherine Deneuve and is slated for a world premiere at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, in the Directors’ Fortnight programme. Après lui tells the story of Camille (Deneuve), a bookseller who loses her son Mathieu (Adrien Jolivet) in a car accident caused by her son’s best friend Franck (Thomas Dumerchez). Strangely enough, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to Franck as she tries to get over the loss of her son, much to the distress of those around her, including her companion François (Guy Marchand) and her daughter Laure (Élodie Bouchez). Après lui was co-written by the director and Christophe Honoré, a hypenate writer-director and novelist and playwright who co-wrote Morel’s previous film Le clan (Three Dancing Slaves), which also starred Bouchez and Dumerchez. Honoré has a penchant for stories that include elements of mourning, such as in Le clan, in which Dumerchez’s character struggles with the fact that his mother recently died and in Dans Paris (Inside Paris, which Honoré also directed) in which the family made up of father Guy Marchand and sons Romain Duris and Louis Garrel never seemed to discuss their deceased sister, even though she is obviously on everyone’s mind. Though films like Le clan and Honoré’s George Bataille-adaptation Ma mère seemed designed as much to shock and test the boundaries of both the makers and the audience as well as investigate their characters, the filmmakers' recent work, including Dans Paris and -- most likely -- Après lui seems to suggest that there are moving into a more restrained realm that seems to pay off double. Like rebellious teenagers who needed to experiment heavily before settling down for a satisfying variety of adulthood, Morel and Honoré are likely the names of the future of French filmmaking as their work moves closer towards a mainstream that is nevertheless infused with everything they have learnt from their rebellious experiments. It is certain that the cast and crew of Après lui will be busy on the Cannes Croisette: Honoré also has Chansons d’amour (lit. Love Songs), which he directed and wrote, playing in the Official Competition, while Catherine Deneuve lends her voice to one of the protagonists of Persepolis, an animated film that also plays in Competition (incidentally, her daughter Chiara Mastroianni is part of the cast of Honoré’s film). Élodie Bouchez also stars in the thriller Héros from Bruno Merle, which opens the Critics’ Week, while Adrien Jolivet co-stars in Voleurs de chevaux (Lit. Horse Thieves) from Micha Wald, which is also part of the Critics’ Week. Après lui will premiere commercially in France and Belgium on May 23. Related links: Related items on european-films.net: |
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