There is a Val Kilmer mystery. Why this actor present in the credits of blockbusters like Top Gun, Heat Where Tombstone did he suddenly disappear from the screens? What happened to him ? This question is the starting point for Val, a feature-length documentary presented in a special screening under the Cannes Première label at the Cannes Film Festival last July and available from this Thursday, January 20 on all VOD platforms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSfs0f95xBc
The reason for this disappearance? In 2015, Val Kilmer learned that he had throat cancer. He then underwent a tracheostomy which hampered his breathing and his voice. A handicap that is difficult to overcome for an actor. In the film, her son, Jack Kilmer, literally becomes her spokesperson. He takes care of the voiceover and tells in the first person the career of his father, now 61 years old. This beautiful trick of realization also reflects the very strong bond between Val Kilmer and his two children, Jack and Mercedes, co-producers of the film. A love visible on the many family films presented in the documentary. And archives, Val Kilmer has a lot.
Because the native actor of Los Angeles is crazy about cinema. He filmed a large part of his life himself: behind the scenes, preparing for his roles, but also, in his childhood, short films with his brothers. He also immortalizes his family life with his wife, English actress Joanne Whalley and their children.
Super 8, VHS, mini DV… Val Kilmer’s personal archives make this documentary interesting. We discover, for example, unpublished behind-the-scenes images of Top Gun. This shows that the rivalry between Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer had gone beyond the script and continued behind the scenes. Another rare video: images of Val Kilmer’s first show on Broadway in 1983. The very young actor then shared his dressing room with two comrades with a promising career: Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon.
Val returns to another aspect of Val Kilmer’s career: his bad choices and the impression of waste when reading his filmography. A gifted actor, the youngest student to join the prestigious Julliard school in New York, Val Kilmer has created over the years a bad reputation in Hollywood: that of an unmanageable actor. The documentary allows Val Kilmer to deliver his point of view. That of an uncompromising actor, who dreamed of playing Hamlet on stage and whose ambitions are crushed little by little by the Hollywood studios.
Examples abound to support his thesis. When he was chosen to play Batman in 1995, the filming turned into a nightmare. The superhero costume is so uncomfortable that the performer can barely move. Result: his performance as an actor in batman forever is mocked. The film works at the box office but the reviews are murderous. Val rehabilitates a fallen star, physically diminished but still just as pugnacious. A very beautiful portrait of an artist, nevertheless served by a chronological narration that is a little too classic.
/2021/08/20/phpx4oJq1.jpg)
Kind : Documentary
Director : Leo Scott and Ting Poo
Country : United States
Duration : 1h49
Exit : available from January 20, 2022 on all VOD platforms
Synopsis : For over 40 years, Val Kilmer has documented his own life and craft through film and video, accumulating thousands of hours of footage.