After “Annie Anger” and women’s fight for the right to abortion, director Blandine Lenoir returns with “Juliette in Spring”, released on June 19. In this new film with whimsical and endearing characters, it is about family secrets, depression and women’s bodies.
Illustrator of children’s books, Juliette (Izïa Higelin) is going through a difficult time. The 35-year-old young woman then decides to return to the village of her childhood, where she finds a modest and loving father, a slightly crazy painter-artist mother, an older sister overwhelmed by her family life and a grandmother who is losing her grip. . In this happy mess, memories and secrets will rise to the surface.
>> To see, the topic of 12:45 p.m. dedicated to the film “Juliette in Spring”:
A film based on a comic book
“Juliette in Spring”, the new film by Blandine Lenoir, was born from a tender and colorful album by Camille Jourdy entitled “Juliette: the ghosts return to spring” (Actes Sud, 2016). “I literally fell in love with this comic book,” confides the French director in the Vertigo show on June 14, 2024. A whole adaptation work then follows to transpose this graphic novel to the cinema.
“This album is funny and moving at the same time. If the characters in the film are not exactly like in the comics, we still managed to keep the fantasy. The subjects covered are not light, but we still laugh a lot “, continues Blandine Lenoir.
Praise of normal bodies
Camille Jourdy’s round and voluptuous drawings, notably those of a joyful love scene in a greenhouse, pushed Blandine Lenoir to do the same in her film. Marylou, Juliette’s overwhelmed big sister (Sophie Guillemin), and her lover Adrien (Thomas De Pourquery) both have normal bodies and their antics – in the great outdoors and in the light of day – are all the more touching.
Blandine Lenoir really cared about this representation of normal bodies: “In the cinema, love scenes are only represented by very young, skinny, muscular bodies, without pimples, without stretch marks, without cellulite, without anything.” And added: “In addition, sexual relations are very serious and quite brutal, where the man is the only active one.” Hence the desire to show something else.
And sensitive men
Compared to his previous feature films, “Juliette in Spring” gives pride of place to male characters. Blandine Lenoir also confides that she had a lot of pleasure in portraying sensitive and sentimental men, who try to communicate as best they can. Léonard (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) is moving in the role of Juliette’s father. This lover of puns, modest and solitary, also proves surprising during a dance scene.
And as with all previous films by Blandine Lenoir, the music is by Bertrand Belin, a very long-time friend and accomplice. The singer-songwriter’s music wonderfully accompanies the roller coaster-like emotions of “Juliette in Spring”.
Comments collected by Pierre Philippe Cadert
Web adaptation: Sarah Clément
“Juliette in Spring” by Blandine Lenoir, with Izïa Higelin, Sophie Guillemin, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Noémie Lvovsky. To be seen in French-speaking cinemas since June 19, 2024.
