After years of mysterious absence, Mireille has returned to her hometown, where she has inherited the vast but dilapidated family home on the banks of the Meuse. However, it is not her salary as a cook in the cafeteria of the local art school that can suffice for the maintenance of the property. Mireille therefore decides to take three lodgers: Bernard, Cyril and Elvis. Added to the gang is Fernando, Mireille’s great, escaped love, who decides to reappear. Everyone has a dual identity, everyone has an artistic side… In fact, in his fanciful comedy The poet’s brideYolande Moreau pays homage to art in all directions, even counterfeit ones.
The triple winner of the César Awards (best first film and best actress for The sea is risingbest actress for Seraphine) wrote and directed The poet’s bridein addition to playing the title role.
We meet, among others, a man who likes to cross-dress, an art student who pretends to be a forger, and a country singer who is less American than he says. In short, no one is quite who they say they are, including Mireille and her prodigal beloved.
“Originally, it was a friend of mine who showed me an art magazine in which there was this fascinating article on a London forger, Shaun Greenhalgh,” explains Yolande Moreau, interviewed during her visit to the Cinemania festival.
“In the magazine, you could see this big man, rather stuffy… But right next to it, there were photos of what he had created: absolutely magnificent works. »
In light of the said article, Yolande Moreau became fascinated by this occult profession that is that of the forger.
“I read and read about counterfeiters, to the point of telling myself that I was not going to make a documentary on the subject, because it had already been done. Then, I understood that what interested me was the usurpation syndrome. In other words: why do we sometimes feel the need to take on someone else’s identity? »
Yolande Moreau’s response? “To dream your life better. »
Three values
Dreaming about your life is what Mireille has always done. If there is an element of denial in the face of his bleak reality, there is above all a desire to make his existence more exciting and more beautiful. Even if it means lying to oneself, even if it means inventing.
“There are lots of ways to cheat with reality to make it more beautiful. Look for your Eldorado… To get there, don’t you have to walk outside the confines? You know, my film is political — maybe not in the full sense of the word, but it certainly is. Money rules the world, with capitalist and materialist values to match. But are these the values we want? Love, community and art can take us somewhere else…”
These three values, love, community and art, are what come to unite the characters. Variously eccentric and abandoned characters: marginalized and left behind, in short.
However, as soon as they build their own “Eldorado”, all together, they cease to be marginal.
” Exactly. Although, for me, they are not that marginal. By this I mean that they are only marginal in the eyes of the majority. »
By removing the majority from the equation, as in the small world that Mireille and her comrades have created for themselves, there is no longer any marginality.
The influence of Agnès Varda
One thing is certain, the cinema that Yolande Moreau practices, as a director, is nothing classic or ordinary. These are two of its main qualities.
“I treated myself to a bit of a luxury with this film: I wanted a tale, a fable full of light,” confides the filmmaker.
“There is also a “Meuse valley” side, with its deep woods, its fog… And there is also the film The beaches of Agnès, by Agnès Varda, who had a profound impact on me… She recounts the century in which she lives by disguising herself as a potato, dumping sand in her street: she has enormous nerve! There is definitely the influence of this film in mine. And then, who said that cinema absolutely has to be realistic? I wanted to get out of that. I live in France, but I’m Belgian, and therefore, people talk to me about “Belgitude” all the time. There are plenty of films like that that I love, but for mine, this grayness, this leaden sky and this gloom, I didn’t want it. »
In this, we can only agree with Yolande Moreau. Indeed, as long as you dream about your life, why not dream about your cinema too?