The director of Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain must feature the successful book by Valérie Perrin, Claude Lelouch’s companion.
After its adaptation to the theater since 2021, Change the water of the flowers, successful novel by Valérie Perrin, will experience a new life on the big screen. And it’s Jean-Pierre Jeunet who takes care of it, according to Paris Match, with Leïla Bekhti (All that glitters, I will always see your faces) in the main role.
The novel traces the life of Violette Toussaint, a cemetery caretaker in Burgundy, whose daily life is punctuated by her encounters with passing people and regulars who come to confide and warm up in her lodge. But what events led Violette into this universe where the tragic and the comical intertwine? Published in 2018, Valérie Perrin’s novel is a success in bookstores and won several prizes including that of the Maison de la Presse and Readers in paperback in 2019. The novel, which made her one of the 10 authors best-selling in France in 2019, has also been translated in 30 countries.
The adaptation of this novel of more than 600 pages could only be entrusted to the director of Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain, according to the words of Claude Lelouch reported by the writer, her companion. “ The choice of Jean-Pierre is obvious, it is the best possible choice. According to him, he was made for the film. Claude considers that there is a before and an after Amélie Poulain in the cinema, that Jean-Pierre brought something new. That’s why I’m delighted with what’s happening. I wrote the book and Jean-Pierre is going to paint it », she explained to Paris Match. « There has always been an amazing, almost unreal connection between us “, she added, specifying that their universes are “ extremely close ».
-Win visually
Asked about filming, which is due to begin in May, Jean-Pierre Jeunet announced that he was “ forced to make choices » in this novel, while wishing to keep particular attention to the “ small details which serve no purpose in the story, but which are the soul of the book». « We will lose in story but gain in visual», estimates the director who cites, among his sources of inspiration, the 1957 Russian film When the storks pass by Mikhail Kalatozov. « In this film, we are going to seek emotion as in A long engagement Sunday. His characters are poetic, in a certain madness, they are larger than life and at the same time, they bring back to life », Promises César-winning actress Leïla Bekhti.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s last feature film dates back to 2022 with Big Bug, released on Netflix, a humorous dystopia set in 2045, where humanity is controlled by artificial intelligence.
