25/05/2002 - Overcome by two decades of pretence and lies, a man murders his family. Nicole Garcia´s L´Adversaire is based on a true story

On July 26, 1996, Jean-Claude Romand was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Assises Court of Ain, situated in the French Rodane Alps, for having wiped out his entire family: wife, children and parents. For twenty years, Romand lead a double life: he pretended to be a doctor when in reality, he spent each and every day sitting in his parked car. Just as his friends and relations were about to find out the truth, Romand decided that killing them was better than disappointing them.
Novelist Emmanuel Carrère wrote a book about this drama that inspired French actress, Nicole Garcia to direct her fourth feature, L´Adversaire. Like her previous three, this 129-minute film was produced by Alain Sarde. It was also selected for competition at the 55th Cannes Film Festival. The camera follows Romand, the protagonist, on his journey through a tangled web of lies until he can take no more and explodes into conscious madness. «I was fascinated by this story. How did this man manage to carry off such a big lie for twenty years? At the same time I was repulsed,» says Garcia at her first appearance in Cannes as a director. «Carrère´s narrative allowed me to approach this story in all its brutality, in the right way. The screenwriters and I respected the construction of the events, the ordinariness of this man´s life that gradually turns into an immense tragedy. I also wanted this story to be fictional because that allowed me to invent all the things that remained «unsaid». The aspects of this story that we can only imagine.»
Daniel Auteuil (Un Coeur en Hivers, Vajont, Le Clef) is the protagonist of this film and Garcia was delighted to share her idea completely with this fine actor. «Daniel was the first person I thought of. He is courageous enough to run any risk. He is one of the handful of new French actors who manages to convey authentic tragedy in his work. He has a great inner self that is both familiar and hidden.»

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(Translated from Italian)