“A film that relieves guilt and shows how complicated it is for everyone”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Wednesday March 6, 2024: The director and actress, Agnès Jaoui. She is starring in Julien Carpentier’s film, “The Life of My Mother” which is released this Wednesday.

During the last César award ceremony, during which she received an honorary César for her entire career, the spotlight once again focused on Agnès Jaoui. A new trophy in addition to the previous ones obtained which had already propelled her to the rank of the most awarded woman in the history of this event. The starting point remains writing at the age of 11, then theater and his meeting with Patrice Chéreau and Jean-Pierre Bacri around Harold Pinter.

Wednesday, March 6, she is starring in Julien Carpentier’s film, My mother’s life. She plays an unmanageable, uncontrollable mother, sometimes troubled to the point of having been taken care of in a specialized establishment from which she obviously runs away. His son, a florist, no longer has the tools to help him and must protect himself.

franceinfo: This film is a look at how to manage the people you love when they are suffering from disorders and when you also have to learn to protect yourself?

Agnès Jaoui: Yes. It is indeed the story of a son who needed to move away from his mother to survive, quite simply because mental illness, illness in general, first affects the person who suffers from it, but Obviously there are repercussions on those around us.

“‘The Life of My Mother’ is a film that can also help caregivers and all those around these people.”

Agnes Jaoui

at franceinfo

It’s a film that relieves guilt and shows how complicated it is for everyone.

My mother’s life also tells of this unwavering bond between a mother and her son. Your mother was a psychotherapist, she introduced transactional analysis to France. What did she transmit and bring to you?

She passed on her passion for psychotherapy to us and I often accompanied her to transactional analysis conferences. Very young, I attended Gestalt therapy groups, I saw adults talk about their suffering. Finally, I saw that behind the social image, behind the mask, there were also cracks, breaks. I saw that we could also change and that brought me a lot.

Your parents experienced everything, sexual liberation inevitably, they fled Tunisia and experienced the kibbutz. Are you very affected because your family was affected by the terrorist attack in Israel on October 7?

Yes and Ofer Calderon is still held hostage by Hamas.

Do you carry this family memory?

Yes. And yet, they themselves were already breaking with a certain Jewish traditionalism. We rarely, if ever, went to the synagogue. But on the other hand, there was an attachment to Israel, to the values ​​of the kibbutz, that is to say, to the socialist values ​​of mutual aid, justice, peace. So, all of that, yes, meant a lot to my brother Laurent and to myself, of course.

Today you are working on your album. What does this represent, another dream that was unspoken?

As a little girl, I still had the dream of singing. I saw myself singing on the kibbutz and bringing peace to Israel and Palestine. It’s another thing to sing, we hide much less and even less there, with for the first time texts that I write, which come out of me. It’s crazy because it’s yet another type of writing. There, I say: I. It’s very different. I like doing different things.

Is it hard to give in?

It’s a little less so now because over the years, I’ve learned to be a little freer from the gaze of others and a little more confident.

You have become a very important female voice. For a long time, you said that you knew you had to say things, but that no one heard them, so you had to shout to say things. This is exactly the message from Judith Godrèche who says: “I speak, but I can’t hear you“. Is that necessary for things to move forward?

Often, I am told: “There you are, you are over 50, you have great roles“, I answer yes and that there are other actresses, other colleagues who also have this chance.

“More than 50% of the female population is over 50, in the audiovisual sector, they are 7%.”

For 30 years, I’ve been screaming like others and all of a sudden, no, it’s no longer normal for anyone, it’s obvious, especially to those of the new generation with films where we say to ourselves: “But the girl is 17 and her lovers are 60 and no one has a problem with that” and we finally realize things. But there are plenty of reactions on the other side, we have to manage to move forward hand in hand.

Proud of this journey?

Yes, rather, yes.

Watch this interview on video: