Franck Dubosc as you've never seen him: it's in the black comedy Un Ours dans le Jura not to be missed at the cinema! – Cinema News

In 2018, Franck Dubosc directed Everyone Standing, his first feature film. More than 2.4 million spectators discovered that the interpreter of Patrick Chirac in the cult Camping saga had real talent for directing and great sensitivity.

With an average press rating of 3.6 stars and an average audience rating of 3.9, the romantic comedy also led by Alexandra Lamy is the highest rated film in Dubosc's filmography to date. After his comedy Rumba la vie en 2022, the filmmaker returns today with Un Ours dans le Jura.

In this film, Michel (Dubosc) and Cathy (Laure Calamy), a couple worn down by time and financial difficulties, no longer really speak to each other. Until the day when Michel, to avoid a bear on the road, hits a car and kills the two occupants. 2 dead and 2 million in used notes in the trunk, obviously it makes you want to talk again and above all to keep quiet.

With this feature film that he co-wrote with Sarah Kaminsky, Franck Dubosc changes register and delivers us for the first time in his career a black comedy that leans towards a thriller. The filmmaker shares the bill with Laure Calamy, Benoît Poelvoorde, Joséphine de Meaux and Kim Higelin.

A more “auteur cinema” casting

Actors with whom Franck Dubosc had never worked before. The director specifies, moreover, in the press kit, that he has changed casting director for Un Ours dans le Jura.

“I changed the casting director on this film to one more specialized in “auteur” films. In the end, there is only one actor who comes from my universe, the one who plays the priest, Christophe Canard. All the others, from the forest ranger to the bar waitress, come from another register. These casting choices corresponded to my desire to give another, more realistic tone with this film.

He adds: “Laure, I knew she could be as funny as she was tragic. But it's what she does in A plein temps which convinced me: she is there with both boundless energy and fragility. It was this Laure that I wanted, not the one, more in a more comic register.”

Change of register for Franck Dubosc

Franck Dubosc talks to us about his evolution and confides in the awareness that influenced his work as a director: “As an actor, I've done a lot of filming to receive love, to try to be loved. Suddenly, I said to myself: maybe at some point, I too need to love myself a little, do what I want and be honest. I have always been honest in my approach, but I want to be even more so. That's why I waited so long before daring to make it.

In the end, Patrick Chirac is a character very far from me.

And then, obviously, the films that I make resemble me more, because I wrote them alone, except the last one which I co-wrote with Sarah Kaminski. But yes, it looks more like me. That said, before I could do something that resembled me, I had to go through other roles, other characters, to find myself. In the end, Patrick Chirac is a character very far from me. It's complicated to play. I don’t walk around like that in the street.”

For their part, Benoît Poelvoorde et Laure Calamy admit to having been surprised to see that it was a black comedy when they received the script fromA Bear in the Jura.

Laure Calamy – who plays Cathy, the wife of the character played by Franck Dubosc in the feature film – explains to our microphone: “I'm not going to lie, I was surprised. I had an idea of ​​the universe in which Franck lived, and it wasn't necessarily that kind of film. But I found the script truly exceptional , I loved it. I found it fascinating to see someone who, suddenly, branch off and go where you don't expect him to and in fact, I think that's where he goes. 'was waiting for himself.'

I'm not going to lie, I was surprised.

Benoît Poelvoorde adds: “I didn't know Franck before. We met on the set of Asterix, but that's all, and I don't watch television. From the little I had seen, Franck, for me, was comedy. When I received the script and talked about it, my close friends – who are not in the film industry – all had preconceived ideas about what to expect. As I didn't really know him, I had few preconceptions for my part, and when I finished the scenario, I was amazed. The preconceptions are terrible, really.”

A serious comedy

In the worthy tradition of Fargo by the Coen brothers, A Bear in the Jura makes us laugh involuntarily and that is partly what makes the strength of this film which plays with codes. Filmed in Haut-Jura last winter, the feature film is described by Franck Dubosc as a serious comedy. The filmmaker explained on France 3 Franche-Comté last March: “I wanted to change the genre a little. To be in a genre with still comedy, but a little darker, more in the humor of the Coen brothers, like Fargo… All these films where we laugh , but on a first level, with characters very anchored in reality. I didn't want a funny comedy, but a serious comedy, a serious comic..””

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At our microphone, he adds: “Black comedy, for me, is about making people laugh without resorting to gaffes. What I appreciate about this type of comedy is that when writing, I don't try to impose laughter. We don’t say: “Be careful, you have to laugh here. » We propose. Besides, I told my actors from the start of filming: we're not trying to make people laugh, we're playing everything literally, very seriously. And it is precisely this sincerity which, in the end, amuses.

For me, that's what black comedy is: the audience decides to laugh, either because it relieves them, or because it's so enormous that they end up bursting out laughing. For example, the first big laugh in the film comes when a character gets run through by a tree. When writing this scene, I never imagined that it would provoke laughter. And yet, at every screening, people laugh at that very moment. It's a moment of horror, not a gag.”

A Bear in the Jura can be seen at the cinema.