“Elyas”, in theaters July 3, is an action film starring Roschdy Zem and directed by Florent Emilio-Siri. On the occasion of the film’s release, the two artists deciphered a shootout sequence for us!
Between Man on Fire, Jason Bourne, John Wick and Equalizer, Elyas is carried by a Roschdy Zem sharper than ever! The latter plays Elyas Florès, a former Special Forces soldier, solitary and paranoid.
He becomes a bodyguard for Nour, 13, and her mother Amina, who come from the Middle East. While the ex-warrior and the young girl become acquainted, a mysterious commando targets them. Elyas will stop at nothing to save her.
Back to action!
The film is directed by action specialist Florent Emilio-Siri, who has directed Nid de guêpes, Otage and L’ennemi intime. He then directed episodes of the series Marseille with Gérard Depardieu and Benoît Magimel. He had not returned to the cinema since Pension complète in 2015.
At the instigation of producer Mathias Rubin, the director decided to return to the action genre with this project, which began two years ago. At that time, Florent Emilio-Siri did not know if he still had things to tell in this genre already explored in the past.
“Also, I’m always a bit doubtful because there aren’t many French actors who can make action films – and I say this in quotation marks. These are very physical roles where you have to play extreme and varied emotions. It’s not easy at all.”he emphasizes. For the director, it is given to very few actors. It is there that Mathias Rubin speaks to him about Roschdy Zem to play the main role.
“And that changes everything for me. I have been following Roschdy for two decades and I have always really wanted to work with him but we had never found the opportunity to do so. Not only is he a great actor, whose humanity can be felt in each of his performances, but above all he has this presence, like Steve McQueen or Linus Ventura which I really appreciate and which is obligatory for an action film”explains Florent Emilio-Siri.
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Roschdy Zem analyzes an action scene
For his part, Roschdy Zem deciphered an action sequence from the film in the video that you can see above. For the artist, this kind of filming is very physically demanding because it requires “lots of endurance”.
In the sequence analyzed by the 58-year-old actor, we see the latter in the middle of a shootout with bad guys, while carrying on his back the young actress Jeanne Michel, who plays Nour. “I had this very, very heavy weapon and this mask in addition to Jeanne on my back. So many elements that add to the difficulty of moving around.”souligne Roschdy Zem.
Furthermore, the actor also highlights the complications of playing a silent character like Elyas. The physical aspect is certainly preponderant, but the psychological dimension of a man who has suffered post-traumatic stress is just as important.
“There is a real pleasure in playing this even if I prefer the text. There is however a real difficulty in playing someone ‘metallic’. It is always difficult to find the right tone, the right nuance to make it evolve”he says.
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“Sport, preparing for a role in a physical way is part of my daily life. It’s something that I have assimilated for years. For a role like that, we emphasize, we double the sessions, especially with the stuntmen. The rehearsal of the choreographies is super intense. There is nothing more painful in the end than hitting the void; it hurts a lot to hit the void, there were attacks of tendonitis”reveals Roschdy Zem.
Sport, preparing for a role in a physical way is part of my daily life. It’s something I’ve assimilated for years.
Director Florent Emilio-Siri explains that he really thought of this film for Roschdy Zem. “I composed him according to his physique, his sensitivity to create a mysterious character with a hidden violence. I can say that Roschdy was a kind of muse for me. We talked about his character and his problems. He fed off that. I suggested to him to counterbalance the imposing physique and the madness of the character with gentleness when he expresses himself.”
A key moment in the film
Regarding the shooting scene that Roschdy Zem talks about, the filmmaker mentions “a key moment in the film. It’s a moment in the story where we’re going to discover Elyas’ abilities. Since the beginning of the film, I’ve been cultivating the mystery about this character who we know has war trauma.”
All the action scenes in the film are organic. Each time, they serve to tell a little more about the character.
“All the action scenes in the film are organic. Each time, they serve to tell a little more about the character. Because I built the film in crescendo. I didn’t choose to start Elyas with a big action scene, as is often done, but which is a format, in quotes, American”underlined Florent Emilio-Siri.
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The latter explains that he wanted to build his work by drawing inspiration from the cinema of the 70s: “That is to say in crescendo around the hero, for example as Rambo or other films where we discover the character little by little. And there, we arrive at a moment where we really understand who Elyas is, since at the beginning, he is constructed as an anti-hero who is a little negatively charged.”
In this scene, Elyas and Nour really become a duo, adds the director. “That is to say, he, who is a kind of instinctive animal, and she who is a more reflective and sensitive character. She becomes the head and he the legs. She is the one who begins to take control of Elyas and he becomes like a machine. It is almost symbolic since he takes her on his back. They become one person.”he analyzes.
The Caravan of Discord
The filmmaker also discusses the making of another key sequence in the film, that of the caravan. “My whole scene also relies on over-cutting in a scene of extreme violence filmed with flashing images.”
It is all the contained violence of the character which explodes in 80 shots in a time of 1 minute 03 seconds.
“It’s all the contained violence of the character that explodes in 80 shots in a time of 1 minute 03 seconds. And it’s definitely not an exercise in style. A sequence shot would have been. Here it’s organic, it’s revealing. The enclosed spaces are the reflection of his mental space.”
“As I knew that the scene could put the viewer off due to its violence, I filmed it like a dance accompanied by Indian music, lighter but which above all sets the tempo for this sequence which is conceived as a choreography. It took a lot of rehearsals to prepare it with Roschdy who was brilliant and who is never dubbed.”
If you want to inject yourself with a good dose of adrenaline, Elyas was released in theaters on July 3.
