Julie is a divorced mother, with two children, whom she preferred to raise in a village in the distant Paris region, and she finds herself faced with a week of major transport strikes, as in 1995 or 2007.
Each of her days then resembles an obstacle course, it is still dark when she leaves in the morning, drops off her children with the childminder, manages to take one of the few trains that circulate, before running again to arriving on time at a Parisian palace, where she works as a chambermaid; and to repeat the same journey to get back home in time, when it is already dark, with the permanent risk of losing her job.
Director Éric Gravel thought and designed his film as a thriller, with electro music that raises the tension, and we stress and sweat with Julie, interpreted by a breathtaking Laure Calamy again. She is in all shots, the camera focused on her constantly, and even on her skin texture or her breathing when she sleeps.
Guest of franceinfo this week, Laure Calamy, awarded the César for best actress in 2021 for Antoinette in the Cevennespaid tribute to the director: “Gravel told me: I’m going to get what’s in you, but don’t give too much, no need, I was passionate about working like that, because maybe I was used to doing things where I exteriorized more, but there, it’s more ‘returned’, more inside, even if it comes out at certain times, because all the same it has to come out (laughs), that we evacuate too much, of all that she collects, that fascinated me.
“It’s a social film, but with an action film grammar, which carries us away, and which carried me away on this adventure.”
Laura Calamyat franceinfo
Also in theaters since Wednesday, Notre Dame is burning by Jean-Jacques Annaud. A fiction with the false air of a documentary around the great fire of the Parisian cathedral on April 15, 2019. The idea for the film came from Jérome Seydoux, the boss of Pathé, and the billionaire François Pinault co-financed the project.
A good part of the budget was used to reconstruct the fire and its numerous damages inside the building, for an often impressive result, thanks also to IMAX technologies for the image, and ATMOS for the sound.
Most of the actors are not known to the general public, no doubt for the sake of identification, and above all because the real star of the film is Notre-Dame itself, as the director himself acknowledges:
“All that motivated me from the start was the very structure of the script, I have a big star, who is threatened by the most charismatic of demons. You have a good guy and a bad guy. You have a star immensely known who is dying, and help isn’t coming, so somehow her doctors aren’t coming.”
“Fire is an extremely powerful actor, because it is absolutely charming when it comes to lighting us up at night and warming us up, and formidable when it chars us. So it is a very perverse actor, very fascinating for playing the bad guy on duty, and I can tell you he’s very photogenic.”
Jean Jacques Annaudat franceinfo
Notre Dame is burning is an amazing film, a strange work even, which mixes several genres. Sometimes we are even close to being ridiculous, like when a tear runs down the face of a statue of a virgin. But, released on 700 screens, and benefiting from an important promotional campaign, the film should normally be a success.
Finally, this is not the film we heard the most about at the last Cannes festival, where it was in competition, but it was also released this week: My Wife’s Storyby Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi, with Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel, and the Dutch revelation, Gijs Naber, in the role of a sailor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exJpLF9R6tY
Adaptation of a novel that tells us about the erosion of a couple over the years, the film suffers from its length, 2h49 all the same, but also offers sometimes magnificent things, with a classic and even old-fashioned style. , and great photography and colors.