Since thirty years ago he appeared on our screens with his tousled hair and this funny way of twisting his mouth, Romain Duris has never left our lives. Sixty films later The young peril we all keep within us one or more characters that he played: Xavier, the student in Cédric Klapisch’s trilogy, the vibrant Molière by the late Laurent Tirard, Thomas, the pianist of My heart stopped beatingthe husband of Virginie Efira in Waiting for BojanglesGustave Eiffel, Aramis for Martin Bourboulon or the seducer Alex Lippi of The Heartbreaker.
Pour A missing part he found the Brussels resident Guillaume Senez who had already directed him in Our battles where Romain Duris played a young foreman father of two children who found himself distraught when his wife disappeared overnight.
A missing part offers a new challenge to the barely fifty-year-old: playing, partly, in another language in the heart of a very different society. For ten years, Jay (Romain Duris) has been traveling around Tokyo behind the wheel of the taxi of the S-Ride company which employs him. If he went into exile and agreed to this often exhausting work, it was to find his daughter that the particularity of Japanese laws and customs delighted him. Indeed, when a couple separates, it is the first to take the child who definitively obtains sole custody.
In this case, it is Mishiko (Tsuyu), Jay’s ex-partner, who fled to Japan with their daughter Lily (Mei Cirne-Masuki). Jay has not rebuilt his life, his whole being being focused on the search for his daughter. He lives alone with a little monkey that he named Jean-Pierre, has almost no social life and has resigned himself to these strange Japanese societal arrangements.
But not to never see Lily again. “I went to Japan with Romain Duris to support the Japanese release of Our Battles, my previous film” says Guillaume Senez. “There, expatriates told us these stories of parents struggling to see their children again after a separation. Moved by these stories, there was evidence there, the promise of a story, a new possible film for us. »
Soon, Jay welcomes one of his acquaintances who has the same problem. Jessica (Judith Chemla) comes up against a Japanese administration and justice system that is totally unwilling to allow her to offer a birthday present to her child kidnapped by her ex-partner. Pressed by his father (Patrick Deschamps) whose restaurant he must take over, desperate after ten years of fruitless research, Jay is on the verge of abandoning his research. But one morning, a young schoolgirl gets into her taxi to go to school: it’s Lily.
Not wanting to rush this Reunion, not knowing what the reaction of the young girl who has not seen her father since she was a baby will be, Jay arranges to drive her every morning and try to create a bond. But Lily’s mother and grandmother don’t intend to let this happen.
If Romain Duris achieves a real feat by playing an entire part of the film in Japanese, it is especially in the emotional scenes that he is most moving. There are also lovely moments of relaxation in A missing partlike when Jessica and Jay party in a bar or sing, with a young Japanese man also deprived of his role as father, That I love you by Johnny Hallyday, in Japanese version.
Just before leaving for a new shoot in Thailand, Romain Duris answered our questions.
Was Japanese culture familiar to you before? A missing part ?
Romain Duris : “Yes, really. I don’t know where it comes from but I’ve always been passionate about Japanese culture, prints, films, I even took Japanese calligraphy lessons. I liked the lettering, the way they were painted with brushes, the ink which didn’t completely cover the phonetic symbols. It brought me a lot of emotions. »
Could this have influenced Romain Duris the designer?
“I think this calligraphic work has crossed over into my work in one way or another. »
Six years later Our battles have you discovered another Guillaume Senez in his way of working?
“He masters his method even more, this way of keeping a dialogue version of the script and letting us improvise the scenes by explaining them to us, of taking into account what we are doing to build little by little. I love this principle. Obviously, we had to play with the Japanese language which could not be improvised for my part. But he knew how to mix that into his method and even apply it with the Japanese performers. It’s always a very free cinema, very in the moment, he films everything and it’s enjoyable. He is very attentive to what is happening. »
Does the modesty of the Japanese, their way of behaving in society, change the way you play with Japanese partners?
“There is in fact another way of behaving, it’s very different, we don’t show our emotions, our anger has subsided. My character has only been there for ten years, he was able to remain a little Latin. We see it in a scene where the character gets angry with his boss. But there were Japanese references to guide us in this type of situation. »
For such a film, do we just learn the Japanese dialogues or do we learn the language completely?
“We just learn the dialogues. I couldn’t do more because before the two months of filming, I was in France. I worked on the dialogues phonetically but once there I tried to grab more words from the street to strengthen the dialogues and give them life. »
What is the biggest difficulty in Japanese pronunciation?
“It’s strange not to put any accent, any rhythm and to work very flat. We always want to add melody as with a European language. Japanese is more monotonous and my coach kept telling me to flatten it out. »
Do you know how the Japanese population feels about child abductions and sole custody?
“I don’t really know because we haven’t traveled with the film yet and I can’t wait to find out how it is perceived. I think that what is happening is a matter of habit among them and that the government is making sure that couples do not separate. It does not favor divorces. But the law is changing. »
Do you still find yourself surprised?
“Yes, always. But it’s complicated to pin down and I’m not an actor who looks at himself, I’m more into letting go. There, with this film, it was very rich: Japan, a new language…”
There are scenes of great emotion, where do we find it?
“Emotion is something that we carry when we are an actor, it depends on our sensitivity and the space we leave for it. It’s like a muscle and I don’t think it wears out. »
What are your projects?
“I shot a film by Pierre Schoeller with Camille Cottin called Rembrandt and whose release date has not yet been set. And then also The Furcy Slave Affair by Abd El Malik inspired by the true story of a slave on Reunion Island. I don’t have the release date either. Finally, I’m going to Thailand soon for Safy Nebbou’s next film, Son of no one. A story of a father and an adopted child. »
“A Missing Part” – 1:38 a.m. – Wednesday, November 13.
