Night doctor | Vincent Macaigne: the taste of all humanities

As one of those on whom French cinema usually relies for major supporting roles, Vincent Macaigne finds a score to his measure in the very beautiful feature film by Elie Wajeman. The actor embodies a street doctor who has to take control of his life in one night, in a Paris filmed in an unprecedented way.

Marc-Andre Lussier
The Press

Present in the cinema for twenty years, Vincent Macaigne is one of those somewhat unclassifiable actors, with whom directors have often explored the more fanciful vein. Finalist at the next Césars ceremony in the best actor category (a first for him after being cited three times in the supporting role category), this man from the theater has found in this night doctor one of his biggest challenges.

As the title of Elie Wajeman’s film suggests, Vincent Macaigne plays Mikaël, a doctor called to travel to treat patients at home while the city sleeps. It turns out that this disciple of Hippocrates has also won the trust of the street, so the poqués of life, drug addicts and other insomniacs struggling to live ask him for prescriptions for things that are not always very clear…

“This character is stuck in his paradoxes and that’s what’s beautiful,” the actor told The Press during a videoconference interview carried out as part of the Unifrance French Cinema Meetings. “Like any human being, Mikaël is not just one thing. Caught up in his contradictions, he tries to go all the same towards what seems to him the fairest and the best. He tries to find solutions in a very compressed time. »

Paris by night

The story of night doctor obviously evokes the practice of the professional. It also follows, above all, the intimate journey of a man torn between the two women he loves (Sara Giraudeau and Sarah Le Picard), also stuck in an illicit drug trade, orchestrated by a pharmacist cousin (Pio Marmaï). In the background are districts of Paris more rarely seen in cinema, filmed at night with great style, in a film noir atmosphere.

“When Elie told me about the project, I thought his idea was brilliant. I said to myself that the very idea of ​​a night doctor made it possible to see all the humanities that one can find, from very different social strata which, however, rub shoulders in the same place. »

Recognized by Aliyah and to anarchists, also appreciated for having directed a few episodes of the series The office of legends, Elie Wajeman believes that the presence of Vincent Macaigne as the protagonist allowed him to explore the romantic aspect of his story, while going further in the harsher representation of an altogether violent world. Seeing in his film a distant adaptation of Platonov, by Anton Chekhov, the filmmaker likes to say that the main actor of night doctor is the most “Russian” of French actors.

“As Elie and I had known each other for a long time, I was able to be integrated into the creative process from the start,” adds Vincent Macaigne. From the first drafts of the screenplay, I entered into the imagination of a film which ended up imposing itself. It’s like in the theatre, when a play needs to be fed independently, beyond the director, the actors and the team that is putting it together. It was a long process, quite exceptional. »

A tense film

At the arrival, night doctor took the form of a film under tension, at the center of which is a character who, despite his benevolence and his humanist actions, has nothing to do with a saint. Focused on a period of 24 hours, the story takes the form of a suspense whose outcome is daybreak.

“Mikael is always sincere in the moment, no matter what he does”, specifies the actor, whom we will also see soon in Chronicle of a temporary liaison, the next film by Emmanuel Mouret.

When he could see night doctor in its final version, Vincent Macaigne was seduced by its very cinematographic appearance, especially since the actor managed to forget himself while looking at it, which, in his eyes, is usually a good sign.

“We did it in a fairly brutal way, in a sort of race against time,” he says. There is, however, a form of grace in the making of this humble film. When I come out filled with the story I just saw rather than all the little details I may notice as the screening progresses, that means it’s working! »

night doctor is offered on the Cinéma du Parc platform, as well as on Crave/Super Ecran.