Emmanuelle Devos and Daniel Auteuil in a film that makes noise

It’s better to know as little as possible about the upheaval endangering the family in “Un silence”, to best appreciate Joachim Lafosse’s new film.

Emmanuelle Devos and Daniel Auteuil have never toured together. What a funny idea. It is done in A silence which comes out Wednesday January 10. A difficult and painful film, Auteuil plays a famous lawyer dragged before the courts by his son. After The couple’s economy Or The IntranquillesJoachim Lafosse explores the societal themes that run through his cinema.

Talking silent film

Discreet, silent and submissive, withdrawn, Astrid sees her world turned upside down when her son sues his father, a media lawyer specializing in pedophilia cases. The event caused a huge scandal in France, opening their home to all winds.

If Joachim Lafosse’s subject is indeed the deconstruction of the family home, the motive at the origin of the drama is also important. And it is the great strength of the film to put it under “silence” in its first part, and to keep this repression, this denial, at the center of the film. The long introduction to the plot exposes “exchanges” between Daniel Auteuil and Emmanuelle Devos, which are almost like silent cinema: speaking for a film about the absence of words. The powerful mise en abyme by the staging and the direction of the actors gives rise to silences that speak volumes.

Frontal but subtle

Lafosse’s external, observant, almost entomological point of view is reminiscent of Claude Sautet. But like the director of Things of life, he draws a lot of emotion from it. The Auteuil-Devos duo works best in the world. It is not a “little music” that we hear, since it is unpublished. The actors take their role to heart, in their dramatic investment, but also in the treatment of a contemporary scourge which is making the news.

We cannot reduce A silence on its subject alone, an angle which often prevails in the appreciation of films, to the detriment of their form. Based on an original screenplay, not an adaptation, A silence takes a frontal approach to its subject, but subtle in its development, its staging and its interpretation, with an actress and an actor at the top of their art.

The sheet

Gender : Drama
Director : Joachim Lafosse
Actors: Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Devos, Jeanne Cherhal, Matthieu Galoux, Louise Chevillote
Country : Belgium / France
Duration : 1h39
Exit : January 10, 2024
Distributer : Losange Films

Warning: scenes, comments or images may offend the sensitivity of viewers

Synopsis: Silent for 25 years, Astrid, the wife of a famous lawyer, sees her family balance collapse when her children set out in search of justice.