The Belgian Joachim Lafosse (Naked property, to lose reason, The economy of the couple) is a screenwriter and filmmaker of great sensitivity, attached above all to the exploration of intimate relationships at a time when everything is going haywire. His most recent film, The restless, in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021, digs in the same vein. This story of a couple between an overwhelmed woman (Leïla Bekhti) and a bipolar artist husband (Damien Bonnard), alongside their destabilized little boy in a magnificent corner of the Luxembourg countryside, sheds light on family relationships on a roller coaster.
His master builder explained to the To have to being inspired by his own childhood with a manic-depressive father. This was a photographer who worked a lot with painters and sketched their paintings. At home, painting, photography, light played an essential role. He mixed in an adaptation of the autobiographical novel The restless by the painter Gérard Garouste, who addressed issues of mental illness.
“Maybe because I have a twin, I’ve always liked to approach [le thème de] the family, declares the scenario writer, but it is the first time that I tell a part of my childhood. My grandmother was also bipolar. This disease is treated in a multidisciplinary way. Taking lithium does not solve everything. Little boy, I heard the quarrels of the couple. Today, we destigmatize this evil, by discovering how often bipolar people are very talented and creative. my father saw The restless. At the beginning, he had asked me to try to express well by introspection what one could do with this illness. I didn’t want to be in pathos, but in intimacy. »
Maybe because I have a twin, I’ve always liked to approach [le thème de] the family, but this is the first time that I tell a part of my childhood
The couple was first to be played by the Belgian Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead) and the Italian Jasmine Trinca (The son’s room), but when the distribution was modified, the filmmaker took into account the experience of actor Damien Bonnard, a former graduate of the École des beaux-arts. Suddenly, the main character became a painter rather than a photographer, with several creative scenes. “We have seen on screen so many great biographies of painters, including that of Van Gogh by Pialat. The step was high, ”says the filmmaker. But his quest here lay elsewhere.
Collegiality on set
Joachim Lafosse projected himself into the child sandwiched between his parents, while also penetrating the skin of the father and the mother. “This one ends up looking only at her man, which is dramatic. For lack of collective support, she is as restless as her husband. » The film explores the daily life of this upset family, also showing how the phases of over-excitement can have exhilarating and magical aspects, for a designer in particular. The rhythm between the ups and downs of the father was affirmed a lot during the editing.
Damien Bonnard assures him of his side: “The most difficult to play was not the phases of euphoria. I was then nourished by the boundless energy of my character, a man capable of surrounding others, of making people laugh, of dominating the game in his own way. It gives wings. But the depression, those flat moments, took a lot of effort from me. I had discussed before with a psychiatrist, met patients and I have a bipolar friend who had guided me. This film will remain in me as a very strong thing. »
He and Leïla Bekhti had taken under their wing the little Gabriel Merz Chammah, who plays the jostled child, relieving the filmmaker of this responsibility. “This very gifted boy, grandson of Isabelle Huppert, will crystallize everything in the film, specifies Leïla Bekhti. His mother would not have freed herself without him. Joachim Lafosse adapted certain scenes to the personalities of the performers and the vagaries of production.
He displays great admiration for the painter Piet Raemdonck, whose studio was transposed to the location of the filming and who agreed to create around thirty paintings. “Damien spent three weeks upstream with him. Some paintings are painted in pairs. The talent of the three actors, their vitality were contagious. It was the best filming experience of my life. »
Especially since he was able, with his director of photography, Jean-François Hensgens, to work in the sun in nature, opposing dramatic tensions to a setting of dazzling beauty, against a backdrop of lake, flowers, wood. and a dream house offering poetry to the film, outside the clinical approach to bipolarity. “We discovered this uninhabited house which belonged to the royal family of Luxembourg, specifies Joachim Lafosse. To obtain the authorizations, I went through the Belgian monarchy with the help of aristocratic friends. Then I said to my decorator: “These walls house a painter and a furniture restorer. Decorate as if you were offering the best to your own home.” In preparation, Damien had taken up residence there. »
Joachim Lafosse did not know how to end his film, and asked his interpreters to configure the end. “They turned to everything they had experienced during filming. The circle was complete.
The feature film The restless hits theaters in Quebec on May 20.