A passionate love for Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon with Claire Denis in her new film shot in French, Avec amour et acharnement. This drama, in theaters, adapted from a novel by Christine Angot, was written during confinement in 2020.
What is it about ?
It’s Paris and it’s already winter. Sarah and Jean love each other, they have been living together for several years. It is a love that makes them happy and stronger. They trust each other. Desire never faded. One morning, Sarah bumps into François, her former lover, this François who introduced her to Jean, this François whom she left for Jean without hesitation.
A tumultuous love story rooted in Paris
Vincent Lindon and Juliette Binoche love each other and tear each other apart With love and determinationnew feature film directed by Claire Denis (Good work, Chocolate, High Life…), adapted from a book by the novelist Christine Angot. Claire Dennis again takes over the world of the novelist.
This film exists thanks to confinement
five years later A beautiful inner sunoriginal screenplay co-written with Christine Angot, Claire Denis adapts a novel, in this case A turning point in lifepublished in 2018, by Flammarion.
“The work with Christine was a little different this time“, indicates the filmmaker in the press kit of With love and acharement. “It was not a question of writing ex nihilo but of adapting one of his novels, A turning point in life. In addition, and this is not nothing, this project took shape at the start of the pandemic.“
And to add:Like many, we were at home arrested, as if under house arrest. So Christine and I worked. It’s a little weird to say but it’s the truth: this film exists thanks to confinement.“
Gaelle Rapp / Curiosa Films
The pandemic is very present in the film. It is perfectly integrated into the daily life of its protagonists, who we see wearing masks, or in the profession of Juliette Binoche. She plays a journalist working at Radio France International and conducts interviews remotely, via interposed screens, and in which current topics are discussed.
“It is a film through and through. A scenario for me is always a soft material that gradually stiffens: silhouettes come out of the fog, they start to move, to talk, they take shape…“, continues Claire Denis.
It’s a crooked and crooked film
But the real subject at the heart of the film is of course love (and the passions it can unleash): “it’s a simple story: Sara is a woman who lives in a relationship with Jean. By chance she finds François, a former lover. But, both in Christine’s novel and in the film, this simplicity is singular and thwarts many clichés..”
And to add:It’s still an incredible and rare chance to find a former lover. She tries this chance, she throws this coin in the air, she plays this dangerous game of heads or tails, and basically she doesn’t care where and how the coin is going to land, on which face. She is an adventurer in life, on the edge of a double-edged razor as the original music composed by Stuart Staples says and which is the title in English of the film: Both sides of the blade.” Again, with Claire Denis, music occupies an important place, accompanying many sequences of the film.
Avec Amour et acharnement earned Claire Denis the Silver Bear for Best Director this winter at the Berlin Film Festival. For the record, the filmmaker was also rewarded, at the Cannes Film Festival which ended last May, for her next film, shot in English. Stars at noon, which will be released soon. The latter will be presented at the Deauville Festival which takes place at the beginning of September.