Louise Violet benefits from a harmonious trio: Alexandra Lamy carried away by a magnificent character, Grégory Gadebois as mayor under the influence of his charm and the director Éric Besnard (Delicious) very inspired by his subject, for which he wrote the screenplay.
Located in Puy-de-Dôme at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Louise Violet recreates a Belle Époque in a rural area when it is most often evoked in the city. A counterpoint that is worth a look, from Wednesday November 6, 2024 in theaters.
Éric Besnard’s films favor characters more than plots, to the point of giving the name of his main character for his new film, Louise Violet. In 1889, the date of the film’s action, the Paris Commune is eighteen years behind (1871) and Louise actively participated in it during her seventy-two days, then is forced to leave the capital, being a teacher appointed to a rural town.
The city dweller is newly welcomed in the village, the inhabitants taking a dim view of entrusting their offspring to a foreign woman from the big city. Éric Besnard lovingly films this French countryside whose inhabitants see their habits disrupted by the secular, free and compulsory school, established by Jules Ferry in 1882-1883 under the Third Republic. A revolution, even more so when it is entrusted to a woman.
Alexandra Lamy rarely had roles in period costume – as in Lucky Luke – and star in a historical film like Louise Violet suits him best in the world. Determined to carry out her mission, and faced with suspicious peasants, she will lead a campaign promoting the modern values of a newly established education and a still-infancy feminism.
The duo Alexandra Lamy-Grégory Gadebois works perfectly in a confrontation which will gradually erode, the mayor not resisting the charm of this attractive woman and above all convinced of a new mission, all the more difficult to carry out as she disrupts a cultural and economic tradition. Historical fiction, Louise Violet is far from being disconnected from the present by promoting the mission of National Education in contemporary France and its past, and the place of women in French society.
Genre :Historical drama
Director: Éric Besnard
Actors: Alexandra Lamy, Grégory Gadebois, Jérôme Kircher, Jérémy Lopez, Patrick Pineau, Annie Mercier, Manon Maindivide
Pays : France/Belgium
Duration : 1h48
Sortie : mErcredi November 6, 2024
