Revealed in France in Life is a long calm river by Etienne Chatiliez in 1988, André Whims, who died on February 9 at the age of 74, has not stopped filming until recently, with projects in his head. It is in his complicity with Aki Kaurismäki that his art shines: The bohemian life, Juha, The Leningrad Cowboys, Le Havre. But he also toured with Patrice Leconte, Claude Chabrol, François Ozon or Philippe Garrel.
“Life is a long calm river”: the revelation
The cult film by Etienne Chatiliez imposed in 1988 a new actor with obvious warmth. However, it is not in this register that he imposes himself, since he interprets a great bourgeois who discovers the exchange of his son with another child, of modest origin, at birth. Andre Whims will reappear at Chatiliez in Aunty Danielle, Tanguy and Trust reigns.
“Bohemian life”: premiere with Kaurismaki
First collaboration between Aki Kaurismäki and André Whims in 1992, the actor is a writer in search of success, alongside Jean-Pierre Léaud in particular, in a film in which the American director Samuel Fuller also appears. An adaptation of Murger’s novel that evokes the greatness and misery of bohemian life.
“Le Havre”: Wilms the humanitarian humanist
The film presented at Cannes in competition in 2011 left empty-handed, but was very well received by critics and then by the public. The actor has become a recognized figure of the spectators who appreciate him, here in the role of an exiled writer who has become a shoe shiner in Le Havre, who takes in a young abandoned African immigrant. This is Aki Kaurismäki’s fourth and final film with the actor.
“The salt of tears”: charismatic
One of André Wilms’ final film appearances in this 2020 Philippe Garrel film casts him as a charismatic father who fascinates his son, as the latter lines up female conquests. The actor puts in front of the camera this same power of attraction that he exerts by his very presence and his timbre of voice, so recognizable, which captures and charms attention.