20/10/2007

Italian-born director Alessandro Capone presented his French-language drama Hidden Love (L’amour caché) [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in Competition at the RomeFilmFest, which is currently underway in the Italian capital. The psychological drama is a co-production that reunites Luxembourg, Belgium and Italy and stars Isabelle Huppert.

Hidden Love is based on an autobiographical work by Danielle Girard which has won critical acclaim in Italy but has never been published in France. Girard (Huppert) was taken to a psychiatric hospital after her third suicide attempt, where a kind but persistent psychologist (Greta Scacchi) tries to break the protective shell of silence that surrounds Girard and her difficult relationship with her daughter Sophie (Mélanie Laurent, France’s Shooting Star).

Despite an unevenness of tone (especially towards the end), the film is an excellent showcase of the talents of Isabelle Huppert, whose raw, ugly and honest portrayal of a mother teetering on the brink of suicide is utterly fascinating.

After the 2006 Venice Competition title Private Property [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Luxembourg production outfit Tarantula again co-produces a film with Isabelle Huppert in a difficult mother role, with a good part of the latter film shot on location in Luxembourg, substituting for Paris and the French countryside.

Tarantula is joined this time by the Italians of Cristaldi Pictures and the Belgians of Motion Investment Group. The French company Backup Films packaged the international co-production deal. Hidden Love will be distributed in Italy Eagle Pictures, while London-based Parkland Pictures handles international sales.