19/08/2024 - The heartbreaking and poetic feature by Fabrice Du Welz sees a vulnerable Béatrice Dalle on the traces of one of the men of her life, Pier Paolo Pasolini

The Passion According to Béatrice [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the latest feature by Belgian filmmaker Fabrice du Welz, presented out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival, throws us in the intimacy of one of the most charismatic and mysterious actresses of French cinema, Béatrice Dalle. Even if it presents itself as a journey in the footsteps of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the film is more of an homage, at once sincere and poetically heartbreaking, to a free and untamed woman who has never compromised. Characterised by an elegant black and white cinematography, du Welz’s latest film proposes we observe Pasolini’s world through the eyes of one of his greatest admirers, a worshipper who feeds herself off the work of the Italian poet, filmmaker, theorist (and much else) as if her life depended on it.

September 2022: Béatrice Dalle arrives in Italy. The purpose of this trip is to retrace Pasolini’s footprints, one of the men of her life (with Jean Genet and Kurt Cobain). Even if du Welz admits having initially thought of making a film solely focused on the life of the actress, Pasolini appeared immediately as an obvious element. What he wanted to avoid was the literal documentary, too consensual or linear, in favour of a more unexpected and complex narration. Pasolini has allowed him to get that result, a film that skillfully unites two powerful emotional universes, two characters who never compromised: Béatrice Dalle and Pasolini himself. Like a poet in search of her muse, Dalle invites us to live her Pasolini, the dream image she has created of him. From the east to the west, the north to the south, the actress goes to the places that have marked the life and work of Pasolini, a kind of mystical saint in search of emotions to fuel her ecstasy.

The film stages this search and Dalle’s determination to find the very essence of an artist, Pasolini, who made ambiguity and provocation his creed. The real protagonists of the story, Dalle and Pasolini meet metaphorically thanks to the medium of cinema, touching and caressing each other, giving us moments of great emotional intensity. Thanks to this trip, Béatrice Dalle reveals much more of her intimacy than she had perhaps planned to, an act of faith towards cinema, her own, that demonstrates how much this mode of expression counts in her life.

Free and authentic, Dalle reveals herself in front of the camera as if in a confessional, determined to live her union with Pasolini without a safety net, to the extreme limit. At once heartbreaking and poetic in this sense is the scene in which her face is filmed while she watches the film The Gospel According to Matthew at the Cineteca di Bologna. A sort of mystical saint who is about to reach a trance, the tears that streak her face and the intensity of her gaze recall the heroines of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s films, but also the authenticity of Laura Betti. A personality at once baroque and romantic, punk and poetic, Béatrice Dalle offers us moments of rare intimacy, especially when she talks about her dead father and her working class origins, as if the memories connected to Pasolini had unlocked something in her.

The third central character of the film, Clément Roussier, a guide and interpreter accompanying the actress on her trip, is also incredibly moving. The touching, discreet but deeply sincere Roussier welcomes Dalle without judging her, accompanying her on her mystical search as if he were a part of it. Never mind that the image that Du Welz, and in reflection Dalle, give of Pasolini is decidedly personal and in some ways questionable (but deep down, the Pasolini myth is nothing but a concept, an idea, an ideal that everyone shapes based on their own dreams), what matters is the authenticity with which they talk about it, the intensity of a cult that transforms into a heartbreaking search for oneself.

The Passion According to Béatrice was produced by Saint Laurent Productions and Vixens and co-produced by Frakas Productions.

(Translated from Italian)