Some have seen the play Farewell Mr. Haffmannby Frenchman Jean-Philippe Daguerre, in its Montreal adaptation at the Théâtre du Rideau Vert in 2020, resumed in 2021. However, this perverse story of a human triangle under the Occupation in Paris is now coming to life in cinema.
Fred Cavayé gave the star to Sara Giraudeau, Gilles Lellouche and Daniel Auteuil, in a suffocating camera. By Zoom from Paris, the filmmaker explains that he wanted to stage one of these French people who had behaved badly at the time by stealing from the Jews. He is a close friend of the playwright, which facilitates the dialogues. “Jean-Philippe Daguerre allowed me to freely adapt his play by also shooting outdoor scenes, in the cemetery among others, and by changing the relationships between the characters in my own way”, he recalls.
A loving pact
François (Lellouche), husband of Blanche (Giraudeau), works for a Jewish jeweler, Mr. Haffmann (Auteuil). When the latter is tracked down by the Nazis, he finds refuge in the cellar of his old shop, after having instructed his former employee to take over the business. The new boss changes for the worse by involving his wife in a romantic pact and drifting down the line. Nikolai Kinski, son of Klaus, embodies the German commander Jünger with an icy quickdraw.
“The play is a fiction, and my film, which changes the trajectory of François’ role, also deals with the desire for paternity and the spoliation of Jewish works of art under the Occupation”, explains the filmmaker.
Fred Cavayé shot his film in scope with anamorphic lenses, just to make the image move without moving his camera, because most of the action has a unique setting.
“It’s an intimate thriller and character film. It is necessary for this type of exercise to millimeter the actors. I had to stay close to the actors. The camera and the dramatic intensity had a magnifying effect, so I filmed their eyes and through their eyes the story was told. The context of the film decides how you will approach it. »
The banality of evil
The filmmaker was directing Gilles Lellouche for the third time, after Point Blank and Mea culpa, delighted to offer him a job as a bastard. “He had never played this type of role. By adding Daniel Auteuil, a cinematographic icon, as a playmate, he liked to oppose two sacred monsters from different generations. “Artists, the more talent they have, the simpler they are. »
Here, the cellar, which resembles the Jewish hole imagined by Émile Ajar (Romain Gary) in The life ahead, constitutes a space heavy with symbols. “This cellar illustrates the confrontation of two social classes and the exchange of statuses when the boss of yesterday becomes the employee, and vice versa. There is above and there is below. »
It is an intimate thriller and character film. It is necessary for this type of exercise to millimeter the actors.
The character embodied by Lellouche, Fred Cavayé describes him as a coward, a man with a complex and tormented by the desire to be someone else.
“Circumstances give him the crazy idea of inviting Mr. Hoffmann, a straight man, to sleep with his wife, because he himself is sterile and wants a child. He sets up a scheme. And the crazier he gets, the less others can tell him. “François isn’t meaner than anyone else at the start, rather nice even, but the opportunity makes the thief, and running the jewelry business while having a grip on his former employer turns him into a scoundrel. The banality of evil, to which Hannah Arendt testified, is displayed in the behavior of this man in a sudden position of power at a time when notions of ethics were dissolving.
A corner of the Butte
The COVID-19 having interrupted filming, the exterior sets in Montmartre remained as they were for a long time, a corner of the Butte becoming again as in 1942, ghostly in this deserted Paris. And this moment of stopping was beneficial to the filmmaker.
He wanted to shoot the Vél d’Hiv roundup in July 1942, when thousands of Jews were arrested in Paris and then rounded up at the Vélodrome d’Hiver before being deported to camps. Horror images recreated many times in the cinema.
But the deserted Paris rather inspired him with images of an empty district, with objects and clothes scattered in the street. “The evocation of the post-roundup seemed to me stronger than the recreation of the worst,” he concludes.
The feature film Farewell Mr. Haffmann hits theaters May 6.