11/09/2023 - VENICE 2023: Gianluca Matarrese’s new film follows the vicissitudes of a theatre director who sees her private life intertwining with the story of her new play

In addition to Backstage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Afef Ben Mahmoud, Khalil Be…
film profile] and Oceans Are the Real Continents [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tommaso Santambrogio
film profile], yet another film in the 20th Giornate degli Autori line-up depicts a back and forth between the stage and real life: The Zola Experience [+see also:
trailer
interview: Gianluca Matarrese
film profile] by Gianluca Matarrese follows the vicissitudes of a theatre director who’s getting to grips with her new play and with a new romantic relationship, as reality and fiction intertwine ever more frequently.

Matarrese - honoured at the 2019 Turin Film Festival for his documentary Fuori tutto and recently seen at the Festival dei Popoli via Fashion Babylon [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – is also responsible for the screenplay (alongside his two protagonists Anne Barbot and Benoît Dallongeville), editing (together with Giorgia Villa) and photography (alongside Kevin Brunet) in this new fiction film, which is shot as if a documentary, revolving around and very closely following its protagonist, actress and theatre director Anne Barbot, with whom the director (originally from Turin but living in Paris since he was 22 years old) trained at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in the French capital.

It all begins with a relocation: Anne is very recently divorced and is moving house. Her new neighbour, Ben (Benoît Dallongeville), introduces himself to her as an admirer of her work and as an actor looking for a part. His approach is direct and unsettling, leaving Anne surprised and intrigued. She’s starting to think about a new project, a stage adaptation of L’assommoir by Émile Zola, one of the most significant novels by the French founder of naturalism, which was published in 1877 and which tells the story of a couple from humble beginnings who are downtrodden by society. Anne will play washerwoman Gervaise, while for the part of her husband Coupeau, the director thinks of none other than her neighbour Ben, who enthusiastically accepts her offer.

Read-throughs and rehearsals begin and the pair grow closer, despite initial reticence on Anne’s part over mixing private life and work. Ben insists, and a romantic idyll unfolds, both on stage and in real life, where lines from the play overlap with real-life conversations. The film’s wise, seamless editing approach places intimate moments right alongside theatre rehearsals, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from literature. Everything which Anne and Ben experience on stage reproduces itself in their everyday life, to the point they end up reliving all the many episodes of Gervaise and Coupeau’s story, including the incident which forces Ben to withdraw from the show and which signals the beginning of the end.

Slowly pulling us into a vortex of emotions, actions, readings, rants, clashes, fights and kisses, the film acts as a game of mirrors which fluctuates between various narrative planes and where Zola’s writing resonates with present distortions. It’s a real experience for the audience, the actors and the director, to be enjoyed without asking too many questions. Matarrese’s two protagonists, Anne and Ben, are enthralling, and, for the record, they’re still together in real life.

The Zola Experience is produced by Bellota Films (France) and Stemal Entertainment (Italy). The film has had its world premiere in the Giornate degli Autori line-up, where it was treated to an Event Screening.

(Translated from Italian)

Photogallery 08/09/2023: Venice 2023 - The Zola Experience

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Gianluca Matarrese
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