In 2019 the inaugural film of the D’A was ‘A faithful man’, starring a torrid love triangle formed by Laetitia Casta, Lily-Rose Depp and the very handsome Louis Garrel, who visited Barcelona and seduced a very dedicated public gathered at the Aribau Cinemas. Four years later, the film that the auteur film festival uncorks this Thursday is also from the neighboring country and addresses infidelity. But some things have changed in this time: the protagonist, played by Vincent Macaigne, Here he plays a neurotic and doubtful man, obsessed with pleasing his lover, with serious doubts about his sexual abilities, thoughtful and clearly vulnerable.
An image far removed from the prototypical Don Juan who is already a trademark of Mouret’s house, who is usually nicknamed “the French Woody Allen & rdquor;. The film, a French-style treatise on infidelity that hits theaters this Friday, crowns Macaigne, with his entrances and that charming absent-minded air, as the fashionable actor after starring in the highly acclaimed ‘Irma Vep’ under the orders of Olivier Assayas.
“In all my films, men have always been a bit clumsy and vulnerable,” admits Mouret, who in the film retraces the brief adventure between a single mother with very clear ideas and a married man in search of emotions. Mouret does it hand in hand with words, based on elaborate dialogues in which the theory and practice of love are broken down, infidelity, passion and routine. “Infidelity situations seem very interesting to me, both as a director and as a spectator, because they put our honesty at stake. On the one hand is the commitment and on the other the desire and our feelings. They are not always easy to conjugate. It’s an irresolvable conflict& rdquor ;, explains the director of ‘The things we say, the things we do’.
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There is not a trace of sex scenes in the film, where only the before and after of the love affairs are shown and its protagonists talk, analyze and debate about their iron commitment not to compromise, to make your affair something light and with an expiration date so as not to fall into the routine. A whole choreography of what is said and what is not said, because what the characters keep silent matters almost as much as what they say. “In real life we often fail to say what we feel, we don’t always have the audacity or the courage to speak at the right time. The film is an ode to lightness, but with depth. Because whenever you give yourself to someone physically, you also do it on an intellectual level. ”.
“In France, as in Spain, we also have a strong catholic heritage. Where is the evil in infidelity? We know that it is a historical invention, something that does not exist in other societies that we have assumed and that appears to ensure the heritage transfer& rdquor ;, emphasizes Mouret. “Fidelity is a relationship between feelings and heredity,” adds the director. For Macaigne, “In France there is a great culture of indifference & rdquor; which goes back to classics such as Marivaux, Molière or Flaubert’s ‘Sentimental Education’. “That the word occupies so much space in this film is a mark of power. It is something that Assayas or Mia Hansen-Love share,” concludes the actor.
