The film Nosferatu, the Squid Game series, the play Le Soulier de satin… Madame Figaro culture week

The Return of Dracula

Created by Bram Stoker in 1897, Dracula has always nourished the imagination of filmmakers. If he had to rename it after the rights holders refused the adaptation, the German Murnau would thus make him the hero of Nosferatu from 1922. Werner Herzog then proposed reading this classic in 1979, with Isabelle Adjani and Klaus Kinski. Forty-five years later, Robert Eggers in turn appropriated the silent and expressionist film.

Just married to the sweet Ellen, Thomas, a notary, is sent to the Carpathians to negotiate a sale with Count Orlok, whose true identity he quickly discovers: he is the vampire Nosferatu. After drinking her blood, the creature leaves Transylvania to seize Ellen’s soul and body, spreading the plague in its wake. Well versed in the genre, the director of The Witch, The Lighthouse et The Northman handles the Gothic brilliantly, constructing a setting as chilling as it is hypnotizing for this hackneyed story. Bill Skarsgard manages to revisit the cult monster, moving away from the unforgettable incarnations of Gary Oldman (Coppola) or Max Schreck (Murnau). Lily-Rose Depp is like her character, literally possessed. M. L.

Nosferatu by Robert Eggers, with Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård… Released December 25.

Squid Gamethe phenomenon returns

A coup from Netflix, Squid Game landed on the platform in 2021 and created a veritable tsunami in the history of fiction. Imagined by Hwang Dong-hyeok, the South Korean series follows a group of 456 ruined people, ready to risk their lives in a mysterious survival program to collect 33 million euros. Every day, participants challenge themselves in traditional children’s games with deadly outcomes… More violent than the Hunger Games saga or other survival games, Squid Game unleashed passions and made the main actors (Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo and Jung Ho-yeon) international stars. Its global success (111 million views in twenty-seven days, the best start on the American platform) is based on a referenced aesthetic, but also on a subliminal message: a fierce criticism of society (the “walk or die” side. ) and the denunciation of the blatant gap between the poor and the rich. The ninth and final episode of season 1 ending with a cliffhanger de rigeur, he left his audience in suspense. Three years later, the big winner of Squid Game returns to the game against the new 455 players, this time with another objective than winning the loot… The game has just started on Netflix. M. G.

Squid Gameseason 2, created by Hwang Dong-hyeok. On Netflix.

Monumental shoe to the French

It’s with a river piece, The Satin Shoeby Paul Claudel, as Éric Ruf closes his last year as general administrator of the Comédie-Française. A seven-hour stage version that he began “at the table” with the actors of the troupe during confinement… Composed of four days, the play, a love drama, whose writing extends from 1918 to 1924, takes place during the Spanish Renaissance and the conquest of the New World. It tells of the absolute and impossible love of Rodrigue and Doña Prouhéze, an autobiographical subject – a reflection of the amorous passion which already inspired the author’s Le Partage de midi, in 1905. Rarely performed, The Satin Shoe is linked to the history of the Comédie-Française. In 1943, during the Occupation, Paul Claudel entrusted its creation to Jean-Louis Barrault, who staged it in the Richelieu Hall in a reduced version in two parts. Antoine Vitez, former administrator of the French, created an almost complete version continuously in the Cour d’Honneur of the Palais des Papes at the Avignon Festival in 1987, launching: “The complete remains to be done…” It is this bet that takes over today from Éric Ruf, after his marvelous Peer Gynthe who likes long-distance crossings and “loves rooms where people age”. As usual, he called on his accomplice Christian Lacroix, whose costumes are sets. A troupe piece, we find among others, Marina Hands, Dominique Blanc, Didier Sandre, Laurent Stocker, Christophe Montien… for an unmissable theatrical adventure! L.C.

The Satin Shoeuntil April 13, at the Comédie-Française, in Paris. comedy-française.fr