Claire Simon is a great French documentary filmmaker, when she takes a side step towards fiction, reality is never far away. In You only want meit reconstructs a singular episode in the life of the writer Marguerite Duras, whose shadow hangs over this film.
In 1982, journalist Michèle Manceaux – Emmanuelle Devos – conducted a long interview with Yann Andréa – Swann Arlaud – in the house in Duras, where this young man had settled two years earlier. Yann Andréa is 30 years old, he is not yet a writer, Marguerite Duras is 68, he lives at home in the Yvelines, an absolute fan of the writer and filmmaker. Although homosexual, he becomes her lover.
Their relationship is clearly unbalanced, she makes him a character that she de-creates to recreate him, to use her words. The young man submits, living in a form of masochism his passion for Duras.
In long sequence shots, Swann Arlaud delivers a remarkable performance, which illuminates this story and the personality of Duras, although absent from the image. She only appears in archives, where her boundless contempt for homosexuality says a lot about this strange duo.
In 1872, paragraph 175 of the German civil code criminalizes homosexuality, the Nazis harden the repressive arsenal and with the fall of the Third Reich, nothing changes. After the war, 100,000 men were brought to justice. It was not until 1969 that the legislation was relaxed, and in 1994 that article 175 was repealed.
“This story is a gray area of our collective consciousness.”
Sebastian Meiseat franceinfo
Great Freedomby the Austrian Sebastian Meise, tells this story, when, at the Liberation, a survivor of the concentration camps goes directly to prison for homosexuality, he will return there often, and will befriend a criminal who will gradually give up their homophobic prejudices.
The story between these two men is beautiful, it embodies the great, inglorious story of this repression.
Here is a genre film shot at the height of a child behind the backs of adults. One summer, in a Norwegian suburb on the edge of a forest, four children discover supernatural powers. At first, it’s funny when they move objects without touching them, it’s less so when telepathy allows them to commit horrors without getting your hands dirty.
“When children discover that they have powers, it becomes a game.”
Eskil Vogt, directorat franceinfo
For Eskil Vogt childhood is a strange land, where the line between good and evil is still blurred. His characters experiment and the genre allows them to go very far. It’s all the more chilling because the actors are very convincing and the style of the film is rather realistic, without excessive special effects.