La soirée des sœurs jumelles

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (Catherine Deneuve and her sister Françoise Dorléac)

Have you ever had a twin sister?
I was personally so lucky to find one in my life some years ago: her name is Patricia, like Jean Seberg in À bout de Souffle, and not only she has her same name but she really looks like her. 
This was, of course, the reason why I talked to Patricia the first time I met her. 
Few months later (I was still living in Italy) I went to visit her in Paris and from that very moment on it was "friendship at first sight"!
Patricia and I found out to have in common, among many other things, an unconditional love for Jacques Demy. 
We even made together some pilgrimages on Demy’s movies places: Nantes (where Patricia comes from, by the way) and Rochefort, because “our” movie is Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.
When a couple of weeks ago I received from the Cinémathèque Française the invitation to a very special avant-première of their exhibition on Jacques Demy, I didn’t even have to think about the person who has to be there with me. Evidently enough, c’était ma jumelle!
So, Monday night at 7 pm, we were ready to enter the enchanting world of Monsieur Demy.
And enchanted we were! 

The exhibition is a must-see for any Demy fan in the world: the entire fifth floor of the Cinémathèque has been split in small rooms containing the different Demy universes, corresponding to each of his movies. 
From the Nantes of Lola, to the one of Une chambre en ville, from the wonderful papier-peints of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, to the reproduction of the art gallery in Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, you are happy to be swallowed up by the world created by Jacques Demy and his collaborators (oh, the magnificent costumes of Peau d'Âne!). 
I particularly liked the pictures taken on the different sets by Agnès Varda, and the small objects that make a big difference, like the congratulations letters received by his friends (Truffaut, Cocteau...) and the card invitations to the avant-première of his movies.

Madame Emery and Roland Cassard - Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

Invitation to the avant-première of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort

The sumptuos costumes of Peau d'Ane

Around 8 pm, the space was full, and one can easily imagine to be in a Demy movie: besides his family (wife Agnes Varda, son Mathieu and stepdaughter Rosalie), many of the actors of his movies were there: Anouk Aimée, Michel Piccoli, Jacques Perrin, Dominique Sanda, Mathilda May, Richard Berry, Jean-François Stévenin, were walking around, amazed.
Many cinema stars were at the appointment as well: Michel Gondry, Jane Birkin, Virginie Ledoyen, Costa Gavras, Lambert Wilson, Salma Hayek, Claudia Cardinale, Valérie Donzelli et Jérémie Elkaïm, Louise Bourgoin, Déborah François, Agathe Bonitzer, Guillaume Gouix (Serge, the killer of Les Revenants), Melvil Poupaud (at his best!), and even secretive French film-maker Leos Carax, with his unavoidable black glasses. 
The royal touch was gently provided by the Prince Albert of Monaco, who apparently is a huge Demy fan. The only one missing, evidently enough, was Catherine Deneuve. Was she out of France? Difficult to believe, but not hard to understand why this event could be way too emotional for her. 

Geneviève and Madame Emery - Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

And emotional is the word I would use to describe the next best thing of the soirée: a special concert by one of Jacques Demy’s best friends and most precious collaborators, Michel Legrand. The musician, 81 years old and the enthusiasm of a 20something, played with his small band many songs from Demy’s movies with a new, jazzy, fabulous arrangement.
Patricia and I burst into tears several times, trying (uselessly enough) not to let the other being aware of that, but at the end, when a picture of Jacques Demy invaded the screen, and Legrand kept looking at him, waving a good bye, we both cried without restraint.  

Les soeur jumelles ont le cœur doux! 

Michel Legrand - The Cinémathèque Concert

We definitely needed a glass of champagne to overcome the difficult moment. 

Luckily enough, the Merveilleux Cocktail offered by Dalloyau was the grand final de la soirée. 
The problem with my twin sister and I, is that we really love champagne, and when we start drinking it, well, it is difficult to stop us. And then we become even more sociable than we normally are. 
This basically means we went to talk to any actor/actress we vaguely love who was in the room (I personally wanted to put my arms around Melvil Poupaud but since there was his family there I just told him how fabulous he was in the last Dolan's movie). 
I have to confess that the one who had to pay dearly for our uncontrollable enthusiasm was Mathieu Demy: we first met him in the exhibition, while we were taking a pictures of ourselves near Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (and he was already laughing a lot), but then we saw him from a balcony where the cocktail was taking place and we kept stupidly waving at him, and in the end we just blocked him in a corner. He looked scared. We said: "Don’t worry, we are not as crazy as we look!" We confessed him all our love for his father, and all the things we have done because of that, and once our speech was over, Mathieu looked really impressed and he even drank a glass of champagne with us. 
Truth is, he couldn’t stop laughing. 
My twin sister and I can be pretty funny, c'est vrai... At least five different people that night came to see us, asking: "Are you twin sisters?" Of course we are, can’t you see THAT??!

And this is La chanson des Jumelles of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort:

Laurence Anyways

Here’s the thing: when I believe in the talent of an artist, I am always afraid of being disappointed by his/her new piece of art or by the fact that other people will not love him/her as much as I do. With Xavier Dolan, I realized this with a certain surprise, I am beyond this point.

When yesterday night I seated at the Cinéma des Cinéastes and I started watching his last movie, Laurence Anyways, I discovered that I wasn’t afraid at all. Why? Because this guy is so talented that I simply knew I didn’t have to worry about anything. 
All I had to do was to relax and enjoy 2hoursand40minutes of great cinema.

I knew it, I had it.

It is 1989 in Montreal, Québec, and Laurence Alia, a teacher of French Literature at the university, is celebrating his 30 birthday. His partner Fred (just the name is male) would like to go to New York for the week-end, but Laurence has something else in mind. As a matter of fact, he’s got something else in mind for years but he makes the announcement just that day: he wants to become a woman. The news, of course, has devastating consequences, not only on their relationship but on Laurence’s entire world. Having taken his decision, Laurence wants to stop pretending: dressed as a woman, he makes the same announcement to his mother and his colleagues and students. A “revolution”, as he calls it, which is going to cost him a lot: the loss of the woman he loves, the loss of his job. The movie follows Laurence and Fred lives until 2000, with their ups and downs, their reconciliations and their lacerations, and their impossible love.

Dolan’s third movie could already be considered as his adulthood’s movie.

Having written his first one at the age of 17, Dolan at 24 shows a remarkable maturity. His cinema has grown up movie after movie, becoming richer, deeper, braver and more inventive. Dolan is full of energy, ideas, boldness, even violence and, on top of all that, he is got an incredible cinematic sense. He is also smart enough to surround himself with great professionals, when he understands he can’t do it all alone. But what exactly this guy is not able to do? Laurence Anyways has been written, directed and edited by him. He even took care of the costumes, to mention one thing.

After a clearly autobiographical movie like J’ai tué ma mère and a love story quite disastrous but also very funny like Les Amours Imaginaires, Dolan pushes here the boundaries of his art: a very long movie (a real film-fleuve), a period movie (were we that badly dressed in the 90's??!) and a heavy, sensitive subject. Dolan clearly wants to impress us and he manages to. Brilliantly. The guy, this is well known, is not lacking in audacity, and on screen this gives flamboyant, amazing results. Visually, there are at least three unforgettable scenes: the New Year’s Eve party attended by Fred (Fade to grey by Visage on the background, la classe 80’s, quoi!), the moment Fred reads Laurence’s book seated on her sofa and the magnificent walk (ah, Dolan’s ralenti!) of Laurence and Fred on the island (am I the only one to have thought about Dolls of Takeshi Kitano looking at this scene?).

 Laurence Anyways is not just a nice object, though.

We are immediately taken by the drama the main characters are living through dialogues which sound right, powerful and original. Laurence is a man who loves women but wants to be a woman: could a story possibly be more tragic than this? We have passed, in Dolan’s cinema, from imaginary to impossible loves. And we feel it.

Dolan has been blessed by the presence of two incredible actors: Suzanne Clément (the teacher of J’ai tué ma mere) as Fred and Melvil Poupaud (who replaced Louis Garrell) as Laurence. They, as much as Dolan, are not afraid of anything and have clearly embraced their characters, giving all they could give in terms of tears and blood. In the role of Laurence’s mother, it is a pleasure to see one of the best French actresses, Nathalie Baye (irresistible when Laurence asked her: "Mum, do you still love me like this?" And she replies: "Are you becoming a woman or a bloody stupid?") and in minor roles, we find many of the actors from Les Amours Imaginaires (like lovely Monia Chokri).

Suzanne Clément - Fred

Melvil Poupaud - Laurence

Nathalie Baye - Laurence's mother

Being the first movie I have ever helped to produce (not a big contribution, but decent enough to be invited to the avant-première in Montreal last May), I feel particularly proud.

Whatever you think of this movie you can’t deny that, as everybody is telling to Laurence after his “change”: c’est special!

It’s Xavier Dolan, anyways...

Great Expectations

As you all know, I'm a huge fan of young québecois film director Xavier Dolan.
I have adored his first two movies, J'ai tué ma mère et Les Amours Imaginaires, and I have already dedicated many posts to him.
When, for his third movie, Dolan and the web site Touscoprod launched a subscription to raise money for its production, Zazie, and many other Dolan fans, answered the call and helped to finance the film. The plot was more than intriguing: Québec, during the 90s, Laurence, at his 30th birthday party, announces to his girlfriend and friends that he wants to become a woman. 
Well, how could you resist not to help Dolan on a story like that? 
The cast was also very promising: Melvil Poupaud as Laurence, Nathalie Baye as his mother, Suzanne Clément (the teacher of J'ai tué ma mère) as his girlfriend and Monia Chokry (the fabulous Marie of Les Amours Imaginaires) as one of his friends.
This week, there was a great surprise: the Dolan site published two different versions of the movie poster and it was possible to see the trailer of Laurence Anyways!

We all hope, of course, that the movie will participated to the next Cannes Film Festival competition, but in the meantime, looking at these images, I can already tell you that I'm feeling EXTREMELY proud of the first movie I have co-produced.
Bravo, Xavier!