The 72nd Berlinale in brief

Marc-Andre Lussier
The Press

Xavier Dolan as Peter von Kant?

Denis Ménochet offers a dazzling performance in peter von kantthis free adaptation that François Ozon made of the play The bitter tears of Petra von Kant. The actor, who had worked under the direction of the director ofSummer 85 twice before (In the House, Thanks to God), couldn’t be more different than Xavier Dolan. However, the idea of ​​entrusting the role of Peter von Kant to the Quebec filmmaker crossed the mind of François Ozon at the very beginning. “As soon as I transposed genres, made Peter von Kant a filmmaker, and realized that Rainer Werner Fassbinder had written his play at the age of 25, I thought of filmmakers of the same age and the name of Xavier then appeared as obvious, revealed François Ozon to The Press. I slipped him a word about it, but we quickly realized that we had to go elsewhere because people would have been too inclined to establish a direct link between the character and his interpreter. I very quickly aged the character so that we feel the weight he occupies in the profession and I then immediately turned to Denis, another obvious fact! »

An unexpected oddity!

Fans of Quentin Dupieux’s cinema know well the crazy humor of the man who gave us films like The deer and mandibles. Incredible but true, the new offering by the French filmmaker, presented out of competition at the Berlinale, is certainly no exception to the rule. Alain Chabat and Léa Drucker play a couple acquiring a new home with a strange pipe, whose properties transcend reality, to the point of being able to create a strong feeling of dependence. To this oddity was added another during the projection intended for the press: the image was erased for long minutes, only letting hear the dialogues that the characters exchanged. During a break to fix this technical bug, the French-speaking journalists had to tell their German and foreign colleagues what had just happened in the story. It is not said that Quentin Dupieux appreciated. Though…

No hesitation for Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

Despite the antipathy that may arouse the mother character that she embodies in Line, a film by Ursula Meier, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi did not hesitate for a second before giving her consent. “It all depends on the meeting I have with one or more filmmakers,” she said at a press conference. I can sometimes even accept a role without reading a script if I admire the vision offered to me. With Ursula, it clicked, even if I didn’t know her cinema. I then saw his films, of course, which I really liked. And since the character is a pianist, I went back to it – I played the piano when I was young – because it seemed important to me to play myself to better feel the absence that this woman then feels of not no longer able to play. For me, this encounter with Ursula is a great encounter. And then, it’s great to play an antagonistic character when you’re an actress! »