3 good reasons to go see the film with Juliette Binoche

Going there with Juliette Binoche would have been a good reason, that’s for sure… but the casting of the film, the script and everyone’s involvement is worth the trip alone.

It’s not just a movie, it’s a cause. It is the defense of the profession of maintenance agent and the demand for better consideration.

Hélène Lambert, housekeeper and actress from Ouistreham.

To become aware of the life of the “invisible” who surround us

Patricia Prieur was a “housekeeper”, a “surface technician”, and today we call her a “maintenance agent”. She still cleans the premises of her company but for a few years, she has had the same working hours as the other employees. “Now we see the little hands that worked very very early in the morning or very late at night. Now we have a face, we have a smile, and that’s the best reward”

Patricia now starts her day at 6 a.m. and ends at 2 p.m.: a revolution in her business seven years ago. “Before, I got up every morning at 3:30 a.m., I started at 5 a.m. and I chained site on site to finish at 7 p.m. I worked on Saturdays and public holidays. With an average of 103 kilometers traveled per day “

Reading Florence Aubenas’s book, I said to myself that it was really an important subject, especially given the crises we are going through.

Juliette Binoche

“The most deprived need to be protected and to be talked about” specifies Juliette Binoche, “that they are not left out of society, that they are supported”. “These women are running right to left for two hours here, an hour there, in cold conditions or exhausted, because they have to run in order to accumulate hours and survive. So I think our society has to support them a little more, because it’s really about survival”.

“These women taught me the meaning of fun“explains Juliette Binoche, “ They have this need for lightness, to suddenly be like champagne bubbles, to want to have fun, yeah that’s really the term. To stick together, to help each other, to laugh and to share these moments of warmth to forget the loneliness and then sometimes the humiliation of these professions. They like to say cleaners rather than cleaners, I understand because it’s the idea of ​​dignity, of doing things with dignity and of being respected, which isn’t always the case. I hope in any case that this film will help some people to educate themselves, in quotation marks, and to have a word, a look, a word, which will make us rehumanize.”

Because the actresses are amazing

“Choosing non-professional actors to play these roles, for me it was the best way to approach reality as closely as possible on the subject of these invisible“says Juliette Binoche. “When I arrived, they were generally very welcoming and with the need to be talked about. But I felt during the filming thatthey had a kind of fervent enthusiasm, the desire to talk about their reality. They were much more responsible than any actor who tried to play them.

This naturalness is what was important to Juliette Binoche: “my real desire in this film” she explains “It was for everything to be good, and for everything to be vibrant, true, for them to take things out of themselves. To be amazed by them in the end. And that’s what happened with each one, differently. But I was surprised by their excitement to be filmed and to talk about them, about what they were going through in reality“

Hélène Lambert shares the poster for the film Ouistreham with Juliette Binoche. “I think they took me because of my look,” she laughs, “everyone thinks I’m not friendly when people look at me…”

In the film, the personalities of the actresses are integrated into the characters by the director. “He listened” explains Hélène, “I think that, honestly, he would not have listened to our opinion on the script, the film would not have been as good, as true”

Emily Madeleine worked on ferry cleaning when she was a student, with Florence Aubenas at the time. The journalist had been hired on these boats (like her character played by Juliette Binoche) to publish a book highlighting the difficult daily life of housekeepers. Ten years later, Emily has also been embarked on the adventure of the film:

Juliette Binoche told us do it like this, or if you’re stressed think about it, don’t worry, hide the camera, act as if you were really with your girlfriends… and in the end we followed her advice all the time. long film and I think that’s why we were often told in Cannes you’re sure you’ve never done it, because you look ultra natural, and I think it’s because we was natural for once. We were really ourselves.

The film was shot two years ago. These women have since resumed their lives. Only Patricia works. The others are looking for a job, but no longer in the world of cleaning.

It is a free adaptation of the book by Florence Aubenas

The film is loosely adapted from the book, so even if you’ve read it, the film has a few surprises in store for you.
“The film is independent of the book” specifies Juliette Binoche, “the very structure of the film was invented by Emmanuel Carrère. First I play a writer and not a journalist, it’s still different and he also adapted the script according to the people he chose to play these roles So it’s not quite the book but it’s a movie inspired by it.”

Did Florence Aubenas find it difficult to place her trust in the making of the film? For Juliette Binoche, “no, his confidence was given quickly. She asked that Emmanuel Carrère be the one who adapts with his words, because there was admiration and trust too”.

“I think the success of the book was not easy for her, because she lived this role of a housekeeper. She went through the cold, the hard times and the tight finances, because she really wanted to put herself in the same conditions as a woman in her fifties who no longer has a job, who is divorced and rejected and who has no diploma.”

“So she really put herself in those conditions,” recalls the actress, “but in the end, the success of the book only made money, living with this discrepancy is perhaps a guilt too.”

“I think there must still have been a difficulty to see this success continue, I don’t know, I think it’s in that area, even if she didn’t tell me about it directly. “