European Films

A grieving mother and the best friend of her late son connect in Gaël Morel’s intimate French drama Après lui (After Him), which is part of the Directors Fortnight here in Cannes. This is only the beginning of the story, though, that will take a few unsuspected turns before ending on a mesmerizing close-up of its star Catherine Deneuve, whose grieving mother from the French provinces is one of her most expressive roles in years. Though unlikely to either revolutionise cinema or win big awards, the film’s consistent tone, strong performances and observing screenplay should attract distributors looking for a French niche title. Deneuve’s marquee value certainly won’t hurt the film’s prospects.

 

Mourning has been a consistent theme in the films of both Morel and the films that co-screenwriter Christophe Honoré directed on his own, such as last year’s Dans Paris (Inside Paris). Their exploration of the subject comes to full fruition here, with the Deneuve’s Camille so absorbed in her loss that she clings to any signs of her lost son’s life: his last school papers, his clothes and his best friend Franck (Thomas Dumerchez).

Her ex-husband (Guy Marchand) and her pregnant daughter (Elodie Bouchez) do not understand Camille’s generosity towards Franck, since he was also responsible for the car accident that killed Mathieu (Adrien Jolivet). She feels however that since her son cared for him, so must she, and she tries to encourage him to go to classes and offers him a job in her Lyon bookshop to make ends meet for his immigrant family. Slowly, Franck starts to respond to her attentions, until he realises Camille might be dangerous.

 

In Morel’s previous film Le clan (Three Dancing Slaves), Dumerchez debuted as a young gay man who offers his bare behind to his newfound lover, who responds: "Do you want me to shave your arse first?", followed by a close-up of the proposed action. One cannot but wonder whether Catherine Deneuve had this scene in mind when she agreed to star in Après lui  -- probably not. Compared to that macho feature, Après lui's tone is much more subdued and feminine, with a lively use of colour, light and camera movements to counter its solemn theme. Le clan was almost devoid of female characters and was harsh and cruel, whereas here the central character is a woman with a mother instinct that just does not want to go away.

 

Deneuve sheds something of her icy diva imagine in a role that requires her to cry and shout -- and even to attend a rock concert in jeans, with a beer in hand. It is her inner turmoil, as mysterious for herself as for the audience, that is the driving force of the film and it is a pleasure to see Deneuve tackling such a different role, opening all registers of motherly love and desperation in her difficult journey to come to terms with a loss that goes against all natural laws.

 

Along the way Morel avoids histrionics by alternating carefully observed scenes -- such as the scene in which she lays out her son’s clothes on the bed and looks at their flat emptiness -- and small manifestations of her uncontrolled grief that are out of the ordinary and at first co-involve Franck.   

 

It is almost as if Morel's Le clan and Honoré’s much-discussed Bataille adaptation Ma mère were their rebellious works in the teen years of their career that they had to make before moving on to more sombre if not less engaging films such as Après lui and Honoré’s Dans Paris and his Cannes Competition title Les chansons d’amour. There is one continuous line of mourning that runs through all their work, though, which makes their symbiosis one of the more compact, consistent and fruitful collaborations of their generation.

 

 

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