A young girl with a determined look speeds through the night on a scooter. She stops in front of a window, smashes it, then grabs a jacket. It is with this gesture, as violent as it is metaphorical, that the The Silver Venusa female initiatory story carried by the French singer Pomme, real name Claire Pommet, in her very first foray into cinema.
And let’s say it straight away, the role fits him like a glove. Or rather a stolen jacket, shirt and pants, which his “neutral” character will wear almost throughout, in his desire to escape from his Parisian suburbs, from his daily life and his destiny, by breaking through a middle where you don’t expect it: high finance.
Redéfinir les codes
Née d’un père gendarme et ayant grandi sur une base militaire, Jeanne, aussi brillante, bûcheuse et compétente soit-elle, n’est pas destinée à cet univers bancaire, archi masculin. Pour y arriver, elle va mêler les codes, brouillant les frontières entre le masculin et le féminin. D’où le fameux veston. « Je suis neutre, comme les chiffres », dira-t-elle même à un patron (interprété par Sofiane Zermani, rappeur français mieux connu sous le nom de Fianso) d’une voix monocorde, et surtout sans émotion, tel un véritable robot.
« Ce film aborde plein de thèmes importants, et propose un personnage féminin qu’on n’a pas beaucoup vu au cinéma, qui redéfinit les codes de la féminité et du genre », se félicite aussi la principale intéressée, rencontrée le mois dernier.
Pour moi, Jeanne, c’est un personnage en construction qui joue avec son identité. […] So, anyone can relate.
Claire Pommet, singer and actress
PHOTO PROVIDED BY K-FILMS AMERICA
Claire Pommet and Niels Schneider
Among other themes addressed here, let us highlight the question of social class (and the difficulty of getting out of it), consent (omnipresent, in a particular relationship with a certain Augustin, played by Niels Schneider), and above all ambition, a character trait that Claire Pommet largely shares with her character. “She has no limits, she is ready to do anything to complete her project. […] And there’s something in his almost masculine ambition where I recognize myself in real life. […] Music is still very much a business ! »
If there’s only one thing to remember from the film, it’s this, she adds: “ambition, thinking big, that’s what’s important! »
PHOTO CAROLE BETHUEL, PROVIDED BY K-FILMS AMERICA
Claire Pommet in a scene from The Silver Venus
If you see in the broken window in the introduction a sort of metaphor for the glass ceiling, you are right. “I liked this idea of a class defector,” explains Héléna Klotz (The Atomic Age, 2012), the director, who visited Montreal last month. “The character breaks a glass ceiling which crushes him. » And as long as we see a symbolism in it, Pomme at the same time leaves her role as a singer to become an actress. “There is something very initiatory,” confirms the director.
“Female thriller”
You should know that this Silver Venus, in reference to the mascot statuette of the Rolls-Royce, this “female thriller”, as Héléna Klotz describes it, was not initially thought of as such at all. “Basically, it was the story of a young boy. » A story inspired by her former boyfriend, who died of an overdose a little over 10 years ago, she reveals, with a confidence that is as unprecedented as it is emotional. “He was having job interviews to become a trader, and the evening of the last interview, he took an overdose…” she says, her eyes suddenly watering. “I wanted to write a story about it, it was a way for me to get out of this injustice. I wanted to revive it. »
But the story was “too sad”, she continues. “Too tragic. » Hence the idea of replacing him with a young girl, a certain Jeanne Francoeur, aged 24, and at the same time infusing it with a good dose of feminism. “I wanted to write for a young woman, and not someone who is dying, because I wanted her to have a choice. »
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Héléna Klotz, director
I found it beautiful: that a young woman who was not born in the right place could create a future for herself.
Héléna Klotz, director
From there to seeing here a film about non-binarity, there is a step that the director refuses to take. “I did not write a non-binary character,” she adds. That’s not what the film is about. It’s the story of a young woman who will take on the clothes of the clan, the costume of the dominant […] and build yourself. »
Jeanne is ultimately a character who comes out of all the boxes and who defines herself, she insists. A sort of “chrysalis”, as she says, which refuses to be assigned here or there. “She is a woman inventing the woman she wants to be. »
Speaking of choices, that of Claire Pommet in her main character was self-evident for her. “I couldn’t see myself taking an average actress, I wanted to make a political choice and take a risk. » Just like the character, Claire Pommet “makes a break in a world”, she is a “foreigner”, in fact. It comes out of its box and builds itself, we might add here.
“And I would really like young people to be able to project themselves, to tell themselves that they are right to be ambitious, and that they can invent themselves as they want,” concludes the director. They can make choices! »
In theaters March 22