This April 17, dive into the true story of a huge “heartworm”. A documentary filmed like a thriller, The Man with a Thousand Faces will leave you speechless thanks to its thrilling investigation, highlighting the victims of this imposter.
What does it talk about ?
His name is Alexandre, Ricardo or Daniel. He calls himself a surgeon or engineer, Argentinian or Brazilian. He lives with four women at the same time, adapting his story and even his character traits to each one. First-person investigation, with the help of a private detective, into an imposter with a thousand imaginary lives.
A captivating investigation
The name of Sonia Kronlund is well known to France Culture listeners. Journalist at the helm of Pieds sur terre, a program in which she questions and presents ordinary testimonies, this documentary maker has made an impression with her voice and her unparalleled vision of human beings. After having participated in the writing of numerous screenplays and directed Nothingwood, a feature film shot in Afghanistan presented at the Directors’ Fortnight at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, this year she offers a new skin to her eponymous book, The Man with a Thousand Faces .
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Published last January, this story paints the very real portrait of an impostor caught up in his ego and his taste for excess. Like a thriller, the viewer is invited to delve into the investigation which will lead Sonia Kronlund to trace this man and unravel all the mysteries surrounding him. Rooted in the confidences of a friend who was the victim of this colossal-scale “heartache”, the film gives voice to the victims, and takes a look at the psychological mechanisms of a person in love, without judging them.
Assuming herself to have only loved liars, the director offers a space of repair to these women through real real-life stories, spoken either by real witnesses, or by actresses, professional or not, telling these real-life stories with this famous man with a thousand faces. “I started by collecting the testimonies, I wrote the texts, then I directed these interpreters. In the end, it seems to me that we cannot detect the true from the false in this film”, explains the author.
Seven years long, this remarkable project aims to be both the voice of wounded loves, traumas, deceived women and broken destinies, but also the x-ray of mythomania and toxic masculinity, without forgetting us make you smile thanks to its light, sometimes even funny tone and its delightful twists and turns.
All through an investigation not lacking in suspense, sublimated by its care for the image and the staging. Impactful, edifying and sunny, the documentary film also succeeds in delivering an optimistic message on the strength of sorority, and is one of the works of the genre not to be missed.
Discover The Man with a Thousand Faces, starting this April 17 at the cinema.
