Six years after the popular success of “Grand Bain”, Gilles Lellouche received a warm welcome for “L’Amour ouf”, in the running for the Palme d’Or.
The film by the French actor and director, which brings together two audience favorites, François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos, was praised for more than fifteen minutes after its screening at the Palais des Festivals, according to AFP journalists on site. .
A success for the Frenchman, this is his first time in competition, in Cannes. His two-hour, forty-six-hour film takes place in the 1980s in the north of France, and tells the love story between Jackie and Clotaire who “grow up between the benches of high school and the docks of the port”, according to the synopsis.
“She studies, he hangs around. And then their destinies cross and it’s mad love. Life will try to separate them but nothing works, these two are like the two ventricles of the same heart. “
“I wanted to make a film that was a little bit devoid of cynicism, that was a poetic, loving impulse…The time of innocence rediscovered. I kind of wanted that, big lyrical movements upset by large movements of violence like a heartbeat, flesh and blood”, Gilles Lellouche declared to AFP, before the rise of the steps.
A couple, two eras: Jackie and Clotaire are played adults by François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos, and younger by actors at the start of their careers, Mallory Wanecque (revealed in “Les Pires”) and Malik Frikah.
Also in the credits are Elodie Bouchez, Alain Chabat, Benoît Poelvoorde, Vincent Lacoste, Jean-Pascal Zadi and Raphaël Quenard.
“New generation”
By selecting “L’Amour ouf”, the Cannes Festival hopes to target a young audience.
“It will be good for the new generation. It’s been a long time since there has been a film that advocates love among young people so much,” declared Malik Frikah.
In addition to the popular success, with more than 4.2 million spectators, of “Grand Bain”, where Lellouche told the story of five men battered by life who devote themselves to synchronized swimming, the director is best known as an actor .
He is one of the most familiar faces of French cinema, happily playing the big guys in thrillers (“BAC Nord”) as well as the good friend (“Les petits mouchoirs”).
At 51, the man who began his career by directing short films burst into the competition alongside cinema legends, such as Francis Ford Coppola, and regulars like Jacques Audiard.
But Cannes also makes room for new voices, like that of a young Indian director, Payal Kapadia, who is also presenting “All we imagine as light”, her first fiction feature film, in competition.
She won the Golden Eye, awarding best documentary at Cannes for her previous feature film “A night of knowing nothing” in 2021.
With these two films, the race for the Palme d’Or, to succeed “Anatomy of a Fall”, is in its penultimate straight.
An American independent film, “Anora” by Sean Baker, is the favorite of critics compiled by Screen magazine. But the jury chaired by Greta Gerwig (“Barbie”) still has to discover “The Most Precious of Goods”, an animated film by Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) about the Shoah, and “The Seeds of the Wild Fig Tree ” by the Iranian Mohammad Rasoulof.
The presentation of this film is quite a symbol: its director, pursued by the mullahs’ regime and who has just been sentenced to years in prison, arrived in Cannes on Thursday after having secretly left Iran.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
