Agnès Jaoui: “There is perhaps a new form of life to be invented”

Agnès Jaoui is “Barberie Bichette” in Sophie Fillières’ new film, My life, my face. Barberie Bichette, who is called “Barbie” to her great displeasure, may have been beautiful, may have been loved, may have been a good mother to her children, a reliable colleague, a great lover, yes perhaps… But today, she is 55 years old (that is to say 60 and soon more!). It is dark, it is violent, it is absurd and it terrifies her.

MY LIFE MY MOUTH – Trailer

“There may be a new form of life to be invented”

In My life, my faceSophie Fillières and Agnès Jaoui explore the question of what happens after 50, at the crossroads of several major changes in a woman’s life. How to take care of yourself? How to age? Agnès Jaoui proposes, at the microphone of Déborah Grunwald, to bring together generations and people: “It’s great to take care of yourself, but if you’re alone, it’s complicated. There’s perhaps a new form of life to invent with girlfriends, boyfriends, shared houses, etc. That’s what I would like. I see a lot of young people who are alone and quite desperate, and I see older people who are alone too. There are things to do so that these people can do good for each other. We can clearly see that there is a problem. Putting our old people in nursing homes is monstrous, even if I know that sometimes we have no choice.”

“When you’re little, you think that ‘grown-ups know’ and in fact, grown-ups don’t know much more.”

Getting older does not necessarily mean getting wiser. If, as children, we can believe that adults hold the key to understanding lifesometimes it’s not much simpler: “What we think is adulthood does not exist. When we are little, we think that ‘grown-ups know’ and in fact, grown-ups do not know much more. There are those who think they know everything and there are those who are forced to act as if they know.if only for the children. We are somewhat obliged to give ourselves a role.”

In the rest of the show:

• “When we dare to say that everything is fine and that the countryside is beautiful, we feel like we are being taken for a naive old man or a privileged person”
• “We must cut the family roots and branches so that others can grow”
• “In retrospect, we wonder how we could have found a good film. But we cannot be and have been. There is an era and its values”

Agnes Jaoui is also available in bookstores with The size of our breasts published by Grassetin the bins with the album Wait for the sun to come back and the staging of the opera L’uomo femina at the Dijon Opera in November 2024. She is the guest of Déborah Grunwald for the show In the rearview mirror.