At the Debussy theatre, when Monia Chokri gave a speech before the screening of her Simple as Sylvain at A certain look, we first squirmed in our seats. The session was late. Each unforeseen minute weighs in Cannes on the schedule of the festival-goers.
Then his vibrant words held the manifesto. She has made herself the spokesperson for the new generation of filmmakers who want to change mentalities on the sets, put benevolence on the program and speak out against the abuse of power, so common in this brand.
His voice mingled with the chorus of others who this year took the microphone or the pen by calling for the mutations of minds. Monia Chokri came in 2019 to accompany on this same platform My brother’s wife. We had known it more gritty, its cinema too.
Discovered in Cannes as an actress in Imaginary lovers by Xavier Dolan, the actress-filmmaker finds herself at a new turning point in her life. In this third feature film (his best), love loses its ferocity. He becomes a bearer of self-surrender and gentleness, despite the stones on the way.
This beautiful film, both tender and complex, confronts the subject of social classes, little treated in Quebec cinema. A woman professor (Magalie Lépine-Blondeau), well married to another academic, abandons her certainties to live a passionate relationship with a carpenter (Pierre-Yves Cardinal). And their chemistry bursts the screen.
In Sophia’s universe, we quote philosophers and we talk a lot about books. In that of her lover Sylvain, the vocabulary is poor and the level of culture, meager. Can this social chasm be filled by love? The filmmaker will not respond to it head-on while showing the communication difficulties of a couple who lose their footing, for lack of common reference points.
The back and forth between the theories on love taught by this woman at the University of the Third Age, the shock of the embraces and the words that caress or hurt are served on a well-oiled scriptwriting mechanism, the subtle camera of André Turpin and scenes of deep sensuality.
As in several Quebec films, however, there is a difficulty in setting the scene for intellectual circles, where books should be lying around everywhere. But here, the words speak and the respective families of the lovebirds evolve in different orbits which collide with a crash.
After the highly acclaimed screening, Monia Chokri breathed easier in front of the Quebec press: “You never know. The winds off the Croisette are capricious…” Hearing the audience laughing and moving at the appropriate passages, she had thought: “That’s it, they’re in it. »
This film, the filmmaker loves it, and her speech on stage reflected in her eyes as in those of the actors the values defended on the set. Monia Chokri plays the role of the heroine’s friend in Simple as Sylvain. However, Magalie Lépine-Blondeau is truly the filmmaker’s best friend and was her first script reader. Everything flowed from source.
“I wanted to tell a story of thwarted love, specifies the filmmaker, to show the impossibility of love by grafting on the class struggle. My parents were activists. I wanted to criticize myself. We often declare ourselves open while being unable to establish a dialogue with someone different. »
In his previous feature film, Baby sitter, her style was colorful in a 1970s way. This time, she wanted to compose a structure à la Robert Altman, using zooms, wide focal lengths. “I especially wanted to immerse myself in a film at the Love Story, without the cynicism that was mine in another era. »
Magalie Lépine-Blondeau and Pierre-Yves Cardinal are grateful to have felt warmly surrounded during the many intimate scenes. In Cannes, the two interpreters competed with ardor to praise the direction of the mistress of work. “This tenderness of the film, we felt it every day on the set, assures the actress. Simple as Sylvain asks more questions than answers and Monia had a clear vision of what she wanted: to play in everyone’s vulnerability and chasms without hurting them. »
Of Tom at the farm from Xavier Dolan to the cobbler by François Bouvier, Pierre-Yves Cardinal often embodies carnal characters on the big screen, but he assures us that each role requires above all to be well constructed. Then it remains to surrender to the person in charge: “It’s very manufactured. »
The illusion is also born of the chemistry between the actors. Pierre-Yves Cardinal and Magalie Lépine-Blondeau felt completely confident in each other’s arms. The rest belongs to the mystery of the films which impose their laughter, their caresses and their tears. Like this one.
Odile Tremblay is the guest of the Cannes Film Festival.