19/09/2022 - Christian Carion offers up a voyage through one person’s memories and depicts a bond developing between a taxi driver and his passenger in a simple and especially human film

"Would you mind if we took a quick detour?” - “It’s not on the way, not even close”- “I know, but it’ll take what? Ten minutes? What’s ten minutes out of our lives? It’s nothing." From Driving Miss Daisy (1989) to Green Book (2019), the gradual rapprochement of two characters who are, to all intents and purposes, very different but who are sharing the same vehicle has practically imposed itself as a film subgenre. And it’s a poignant, accelerated, Parisian variant of the form, providing roles to die for to its two lead actors, which is offered up by Christian Carion’s Driving Madeleine [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a movie which enjoyed its world premiere in the Toronto Film Festival’s Special Presentations programme after opening the Angoulême French-Language Film Festival at the end of August and ahead of its release in France on 21 September via Pathé.

"I’ve got a nice little job for you in Bry-sur-Marne; the client’s happy for you to turn the metre on right away". Forty-six-year-old Charles (Dany Boon) plays a stereotypical Parisian taxi driver: quick-tempered, grouchy, appearing to carry all the world’s misery on his shoulders and suppressing a rage which is ready to explode at any moment: "I’ve spent my life in this taxi, it drives you mad. 12 hours a day, six days a week, and all that for what? Once you’ve paid your car rental, expenses and all the rest of it (…) It has its advantages: I don’t have a boss and if I don’t want to talk, I don’t talk. But there’s the constant anxiety of needing to feed your family, who you never actually get to see. And then you’ve got clients who are drunk, aggressive, violent, stingy…"

A grandmother who’s determined to talk to a taxi driver who says as little as politely possible and sits and waits for the journey to be over, is a typical situation for Charles, who prepares himself for the onslaught when his client 92-year-old Madeleine Keller (Line Renaud) starts chatting. But it’s immediately clear that this is a unique situation, because this elderly lady is making her way to the other side of Paris to enter a retirement home. It’s obviously a huge turning point in her life, which takes her back to her most significant memories (love and tragedies), which she then relates to Charles over the course of nostalgic detours and the different circumstances she leads the taxi into. A bond begins to grow between the two protagonists in this huis-clos on wheels…

An academic yet popular film, Driving Madeleine works perfectly with its double-mirrored narrative simplicity, carried by two actors who enjoy wonderful natural chemistry. Travelling back in time via seven flashbacks (with Alice Isaaz playing young Madeleine), the film also tackles the subject of domestic violence with real force. In terms of "good feelings and tragedies", which are central to the story’s creative process (the screenplay is by Cyril Gély, adapted by the director), Christian Carion is one of those filmmakers whose humanity is so firmly entrenched he transcends archetypes without effort and easily stirs our emotions, over and above any particular formulae. But this makes him no less masterful in mise en scène or innovation. In fact, the director and his director of photography Pierre Cottereau shot all the scenes of the taxi travelling through Paris and its suburbs in a film studio, installing screens around the vehicle onto which the entire trip was broadcast, having been filmed beforehand from all angles. In this sense, it was an immersive film shoot for the actors (who were spared a green background thanks to the director’s approach) and it plunges viewers into an incredibly credible visual journey across the French capital, peppered with captivating jazz songs sung by Dinah Washington and Etta James.

Driving Madeleine is steered by Une Hirondelle Productions, in co-production with Artémis, TF1 Films Production and Pathé. The latter is also handling international sales.

(Translated from French)