With Emmanuel Mouret, director of “Trois amis”, the art of intertwining gravity and comedy

There was a time before, when Emmanuel Mouret himself played in his own films, sort of French romantic comedies, Let Lucie do it (2000) until Caprice (2015), a tailor-made role of a clumsy ingenue, tumbling with many blunders into the round of feelings. And then, with Mademoiselle de Joncquières (2018), he retreated behind the camera, devoting himself entirely to the other actors, of whom he brings together subtle combinations in each film. Find the filmmaker in a street in 13^e arrondissement, in Paris, it is, in the time of a short hallucination, falling back on his former character: playful hair, nose in the wind, dreamy half-smile, jacket and scarf of the post-student, since past master, but without having the 'air.

Three friendshis latest feature film, presented at the Venice Film Festival in September, is a romantic escape for three female performers – India Hair, Camille Cottin and Sara Forestier – on a wide range running from laughter to tears. “If the basic plot was rather tragic, I did not want to devolve entirely into melodramaconfides Emmanuel Mouret. But rather interweave seriousness with fantasy, with comedy. Like Leo McCarey or Billy Wilder, we go from serious to light – and we only ever start with the films we love. In painting, we would speak of contrast, in music of counterpoint. »

The initial idea could be found in the Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han, in The Transparency Society (PUF, 2017), a modern ideal that he opposes to a true society of trust. “It made me think that, in love, trust is not established on total transparency either. »

In clos vase

From one term to the other opens up, in fact, a space conducive to the Mouretian imagination, that of amorous inconsistencies and the circulations of desire. In his films, one relationship always hides another, every couple makes a domino and pulls towards the triangular. “The modern individual is still deeply dividedspecifies the filmmaker. On the one hand, he is required by society to respect his commitments, on the other hand by taking into account his own desires. » How to reconcile the two? “This question is always of interest to fiction. It's the same in a couple's film or in a gangster film: the one who respects the rules of the clan, what happens the day he is forced to shoot his best friend? There, there begins to be cinema. »

You have 58.27% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.