In turn, he impresses. While she just made her second pregnancy official, we find the actress undergoing a C-section Love and forests By Valerie Donzelli, selected at Cannes.
Few actresses can claim to have starred in three of the strongest French films of the year. Moreover, Virginie Ephyra will never be happy about it, success has not changed her humility in any way. After squeezing us in See Paris again by Alice Winokur, which earned him his first César, and other people’s children By Rebecca Zlotowski, she finds a new environment in her own right in Valerie Donzelli’s sixth film.
In Love and forests Adapted from Eric Reinhardt’s novel and selected for the Cannes premiere, the actress is Blanche, a teacher who leaves her Normandy, her twin and her life for the love of Grégoire, whom she has been waiting for. Or so he believed, because when isolated from everyone, he turns into a possessive, angry, jealous tyrant… And the charm of the universe, which awakens Jacques Demy and Eric Rohmer to break and immerse themselves in a Hitchcockian psychological thriller that brilliantly divides. mechanisms of influence.
In the video, Love and foreststhe teaser
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Madame Figaro . – How did you meet Valery Donzeli?
Virginia Efira. – It was a long time ago, he just realized The apple queen. But we became close only on the set Madeleine Collins, where she played the role of my best friend. One day he gave me Eric Reinhardt’s book, saying he wanted to do something with it. He wrote a script with Audrey Dewan, and reading it, I felt a shared desire. Stories of control or domestic violence often speak to the vulnerability of victims. But here is the firmness of this woman. It takes strength to endure, to endure in silence, first by trying to forgive the lie… Trying to understand, it interested me as much as the breaking point: when do you stop loving? When does denial give way to shame? Where do you find the strength to leave when you have children…
The various stages of the relationship create tonal breaks in the film…
The first part is consistent with what we know of Valerie Donzelli, a universe in the form of charm that she breaks down to slide into tension, but always with very strong visual creativity and cinematic ideas. With this, it goes beyond the thesis film, which would be defined only by its painful theme. Without aestheticizing violence, there is a very individual look to Valerie, who is constantly trying to reinvent herself.
Stories of control or domestic violence often speak to the vulnerability of victims. But this woman’s tenacity speaks for itself
Virginia Ephira
Where did you draw to play this character?
I didn’t have to look too far, I know the theme. I do not believe in the actor who can only embody his suffering, but sometimes it is interesting to study his gray areas. When we play, we activate what we can, our past, our beliefs, and even things that escape us. The memory of the body is very strong, for example… During the filming, it was not always happy “Motor! and “Cut!” ” but Valerie is extremely friendly and Melville Pupo is a very gentle colleague whom I have known very well for a long time. Fiction also brings the idea of displacement. not only do we know that there is an end to the scene, but we also tell ourselves that we have the ability to overcome the painful experience.
Influence is a complex topic on which views have evolved…
Previously, this word was not so much in the public space. When it came to the couple, we talked about crimes of passion, domestic violence. We did not, for example, approach femicides as the result of a society plagued by gender stereotypes and relations of dominance. In the film, what is activated in the male character is completely related to the reassertion of one’s gender.
“It is possible that Belgium expresses itself in me”
You’ll be in too there’s nothing to lose Delphine Deloge’s first film to be selected at Cannes in a certain sense.
The dolphin does not come from seraglio, but from documentaries. I loved her nuanced approach to the story of this loving but overwhelmed mother who loses custody of her young son after a family accident. He knows the social environment he imagines and does not blame anyone. he doesn’t tell about the bankruptcy of a maternity hospital or child welfare, but about the cogs of a racing car. The film shows how we can become what others imagine us to be. It’s totally Kafkaesque, inseparable.
Your year has been rich with female directors: Alice Winokur, Rebecca Zlotowski, Valerie Donzel, Delphine Deloge… Is this a coincidence?
I have shot with many women, and one of them was Justine Treet, who changed my destiny as an actress. Victoria: Maybe they see in me a form of expansion, because these filmmakers of my generation offer me women who say something about the current Western society. Maybe it also has to do with the physicality, the energy, the intimacy that I associate with it. I don’t really have the image of a disappearing, ethereal, unattainable actress… Maybe it’s Belgium expressing itself in me, this little anchored and familiar thing that can be let go. Anyway, I have to live with who I am and so far it’s been pretty successful.
Are you planning after your maternity leave?
I already shot Everything is fine, A Disney+ series where I play the mother of a child with leukemia. It is brilliantly written by Camille de Castelnau, who manages to bring the detail into seriousness… Then, I don’t know what to expect. It’s a strange feeling because I sometimes knew my schedule for two years. That said, recently I have been seen so much that it will be a little vacation for the audience. I don’t regret any of the films I’ve made recently, but sometimes I’m a little afraid of tiring the audience.
Love and forestsWith Valerie Donzel, Virginie Efira, Melville Pupo… Released on May 24.
Interview “Entre-Deux”. Eleven years after the release of “20 Years Apart”, Virginie Efira and Pierre Nini appear.
Source: Le Figaro
