27/09/2005

The Namur International Festival screened, in the "Panorama" section the first film by Frenchman Guillaume Malandrin, Ça m'est égal si demain n'arrive pas. After several shorts, among them the well-received Raconte, one of the producers of La Parti (read interview), while preparing a feature with a Belgian Cécile de France and a German Ulrich Tukur leading the cast, has now launched himself into the feature film adventure with a gentle film, shot on DV, with no budget, a few weeks shooting and a crew of heigth.

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Written by Stéphane Malandrin, the director and the actor, Çam'est égal seems to have won its bet, with its dialogue that appears improvised and a camera resting on the shoulder. If the second half seems a little breathless, the first half has constructed with brio the weight bearing down on this troubled man, whom the film follows step by step. Jacky Lambert has a real gangster look about him, with his old leather sack full of banknotes and his mysterious past in prison. At other times, his slightly gangly silhouette and his composed manner of speech give this lonely character the allure of a timid dreamer, who simply wants to "borrow" his son from his foster family to take him on holiday for a few days. He manages it, and thanks to a few coincidences, rediscovers Anne, the child's mother(Olga Grimberg), who he takes with him, to be part of this reconstituted happy famiy.

Thanks to an elliptical narrative, which silences anything that might interfere with the story, Ça m'est égal is constructed on single trajectory, a desire both modest and fierce, in which is revealed a thirst for freedom, the will to emancipate. Silent, minimalist and direct, this first film has a more or less bet won.

(Translated from French)