Angoulême 2023- day 3: The Kings of the track, the Jaoui-Lebghil duo, First case
Daily review of the 16th edition of the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival
Movie of the day: The kings of the track by Thierry Klifa
A film like a bubble of champagne, a sort of link between the comedies of Pierre Salvadori (with whom he shares the same co-screenwriter: Benoît Graffin) and the US comedies of the 80s at the moonlight Or Family business. A film about the family too, a theme dear to its director, the one that can quickly suffocate you as much as it carries you. Accustomed to more dramatic atmospheres on the big screen (The family hero, Everything separates us…), Thierry Klifa (director at the Théâtre de l’hilarant Croque-monsieur in 2016) thus ventures here on the shores of fantasy, in the footsteps of a strange tribe – the mother, her two sons and her grandson – Pieds Nickelés style hustlers including the theft of a painting by Tamara of Lempicka during a burglary interrupted by the forces of order will upset the fragile balance. The story here constantly plays with pretense both in the complex relationships that unite the members of this family and in the private detective and his faithful sidekick, launched on their heels. Everyone deceives their world and vice versa, to the point that guessing who is telling the truth and when turns out to be a totally impossible mission. Klifa’s work is constantly in motion and yet never artificially agitated. He pays the same attention to the writing of incredible situations as to that of his colorful characters, regularly bringing up, unexpectedly, moments of trouble and emotion between two bursts of laughter. And its actors seize with a contagious greed of this so rich material: Fanny Ardant in My Dalton with the language of viper, Mathieu Kassovitz whom one did not see having so much foot with the cinema for a long time, Nicolas Duvauchelle unrecognizable with the first meaning of the term (we leave you the surprise…), Laetitia Dosch, a virtuoso who seems to have escaped from a film by De Broca, but also Ben Attal, Michel Vuillermoz or even Zbeida Belhajamor, the brilliant revelation ofA story of love and desire. And it is precisely there that we measure the love that Klifa has for his actors: in this way of offering them tailor-made roles but where they always reveal something new. It’s fine, light, joyful and deep at the same time. Adjectives that apply to the other central character of these kings of the track : the soundtrack by Alex Beaupain.
In theaters March 27, 2024
The duo of the day: Agnès Jaoui and William Lebghil in My Mother’s Life
Comedy, Julien Carpentier knows inside out for having worked with Mathieu Madénian, Thomas VDP and Monsieur Poulpe on the small screen. But on the occasion of his first feature film, he chose a step aside by venturing towards a more moving type of comedy, the one capable of leaving you with tears in your eyes as much as a smile on your lips around a duet mother-son. Pierre, 33, a florist whose small shop is a hit, and Judith, whimsical and excessive who reappears in his life after two years away from him. A voluntary distancing on her part from him to have the bipolarity from which she suffers treated, in a specialized place. But a relationship “neither with you nor without you” since his deep love for this mother prevents him from detaching himself from her and basically from building himself as an adult. My Mother’s Life talks about this very singular disease where you go from the most total euphoria to the deepest depression, almost in the snap of your fingers. But without an ounce of misery or obsession with a forced march above ground happy ending. Thanks to a writing of the characters all in subtlety and a duo of actors in tune. William Lebghil-Agnès Jaoui who, in the shoes of these characters that everything a priori opposes, deploy treasures of nuances over these scenes where what binds them will gradually take precedence over everything else. Beyond words, a smile, a look, a silence are enough for them to tell each other everything and tell us everything.
In theaters March 6
The revelation of the day: Victoria Musiedlak for First case
Nora is a young lawyer who has just graduated and is still learning in the firm that hired her when her boss decides to send her on her first criminal case, which is supposed to be settled in a few days… without imagining the upheavals that this will cause in She. For her first feature film, Victoria Musiedlak ventures into the field of initiatory narrative where this young hopeful of the bar emerges from the cocoon of opulent Parisian offices to confront the brutality of the field. And where by defending a young man accused of murder, over the mistakes she makes, she will gradually question her vision of justice, inherited from the humanist values of her family. The success of First case lies in the ability of its director to constantly advance these internal questions and a plot with double suspense: is the accused in question guilty? And if so, will Nora manage to be acquitted despite everything, will she save a man she knows is a murderer in the name of the very essence of her work? The story is fluid, crossed by a love story that is tied between Nora and the cop in charge of the investigation (Anders Danielsen Lie, all in ambivalence) coming to reinforce the moral questioning of her heroine that her parents, clinging to a vision Manichean justice between victims – the only ones their daughter must defend in their eyes – and executioners. And Noée Abita translates marvelously by her interpretation this chrysalis becoming a butterfly, this young woman who, first overtaken by events, will monopolize them to grow. According to her principles. A more than promising debut feature.
In theaters in 2024
