What was
your reaction to the script?
It’s exciting
to read a script when you know you’ll be playing a particular character. I was
extremely moved by the story and the important themes it touches upon –
honesty, love, loss, lies, letting go, determination, the will to live – all
subtly rendered, with a palpable feeling of vulnerability and yet a certain
lightness seeping into the friendship between Anna and Adrien, adding to its
complexity. Anna’s personal growth is amazing. In the beginning she’s a quiet
person who, after the death of her fiancé, is kind of adrift. When she meets
Adrien, she rediscovers the joie de vivre she’d felt before Frantz died and
truly blooms, making the blow delivered when she learns the truth hurt all the
more. Then, in the second part of the story, she goes on to develop remarkable
strength. I was so happy to play this wonderful role.
How did you
prepare to play a character who learns about love and becomes a woman?
Anna
evolves a great deal in the story, so it was important for me to understand the
different stages she’s going through. How did the war change her life? What was
she like before? What is Adrien’s effect on her? What desires is he awakening?
It was critical for me to understand her relationships with those around her,
the pain she’d felt since Frantz died and, in contrast, her desire to live and
love again.
One
important stage for Anna begins when Adrien tells her the truth.
Yes, and it’s an unimaginable shock for her. She decides to spare her
in-laws that pain and carries the burden of the lie and the heavy
responsibility that comes with it all on her own. It’s a crucial moment that
raises many questions. Why is she protecting Adrien?
Indeed,
Anna is the only one who reaches a point where she embraces the truth and
confronts her desires. Do you think Adrien, too, is finally ready to accept the
truth of their feelings for each other?
I really
wonder whether Anna still desires him. I’m not sure. I think she’s grown up too
much for Adrien. He sparked her desire, she was moved by him, she fell in love
and embarked on a long journey to find him again. In fact, her journey was so
long she went past him! Of course when she finds Adrien’s family she’s happy to
see him again, but something doesn’t quite gel between them. Adrien is stuck in
his situation, he’s not strong enough to get out. And Anna has her life to
live.
Frantz is a moving film, shot (mostly) in black and white, and it tells
the story of Anna who falls in love with Adrien. Adrien is the Frenchman who
visits the grave of Frantz, who fell in the last days of the Great War, Anna's
husband to be. Adrien claims to be a friend of Frantz from before the war. He
befriends Anna and Frantz' parents, who consider him as the returned son and
the perfect husband for Anna. But Adrien can't hide the truth from Anna and
tells his real intentions: to be forgiven. For he has met Frantz only once,
face to face, in the trenches and in a reflex killed the German. Anna is in
shock, but when she recovers, she travels to a devastated France to search for
Adrien to find out that...it's too late. Trop tard. The film explores the
romantic (Germany) and the rational (France), truth and fiction. I wonder
whether the painting by Edouard Manet of a suicide, which gives Anna the
strength to carry on, was ever at the Louvre for an exhibit then.
Love, remorse, forgiveness, mourning are the themes of this beautiful film, with great performances by Paula Beer as Anna and Pierre Niney as Adrien.
Love, remorse, forgiveness, mourning are the themes of this beautiful film, with great performances by Paula Beer as Anna and Pierre Niney as Adrien.
César nominations for Frantz, a.o.
best actor : Pierre Niney
promising actress : Paula Beer.
best adaptation, best director :
François Ozon
best film: Frantz
Le suicide, 1887 Edouard Manet
On April
12, 1866, at his home at 7 rue Turgot, Jules Holtzapfel committed suicide,
shooting himself in the head. In his published suicide note, the Austrian
painter wrote: “The members of the [Salon] jury have rejected me. I therefore
have no talent. . . . I must die!”
The 'grim'
nature of the work resides in the grisly details - the vast puddle of blood at
the foot of the bed and on the victim's white shirt, his dinner jacket strewn
upon the floor, and his lifeless hand weighed down by the large revolver. His
gaping mouth seems to gasp for air, an alarming detail that suggests that the
victim may not have successfully completed the act. He currently lies in an
agonizing physical and spiritual state of limbo. Through the haphazard
brushwork and the contorted position of the victim, Manet heightens the
experiential nature of the masochistic act; the painting appears as a filmic
episode unfolding before our eyes, forcing us to ponder, minute by minute, the
circumstances that drove this man to attempt self-annihilation.
