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An original and sensitive film with
Julie Depardieu
• Director explores the eruption of
Allende’s Chile and the Cuban Revolution in the life
of a 9-year-old French girl
BY MICHEL PORCHERON
—Special for Granma International—
“It’s because of Voltaire”. “It’s Rousseau’s fault”.
Immortalized by Victor Hugo in his novel Les
Miserables, the refrain from the tune sung by
Gavroche (1) beneath a shower of bullets on the
barricades of Saint-Denis Street during the Parisian
insurrection of 1832, is known throughout the entire
world.
More
modestly, La faute à Fidel! (“It’s Fidel’s
Fault) is the first full-length feature film from
young Julie Gavras, daughter of Costantinos, better
known as Costa (2).
Before becoming a film, La faute à Fidel
(Tutta Colpa di Fidel) started life as a book by
Italian journalist Domitilla Calamai (3) that Julie
Gavras adapted for a free version for the big
screen. Not just by chance¼ it was Costa’s fault! “I
enjoyed the book very much because it gave me the
impression of rediscovering myself without it being
my story exactly¼ In spite of that, all the
questions that the author asks about commitment I
also asked myself, perhaps now more than ever
before¼ I feel a great fascination for that
generation, that of my parents, that of those who
took on a commitment, those who fought and
experienced an era which was so bright, so happy,”
said the young director, for whom the next
generation is “supposedly cynical and lacking in
incentive.”
Take
a look at the synopsis of the film: Anna is nine
years old. For her, life is simple, made up of order
and habits and she is growing up comfortably between
Paris and Bordeaux. In the space of a year, between
1970 and 1971, the political commitment assumed by
her parents, who are extremely left-wing, begins to
disrupt Anna’s life. First her uncle, a communist
implicated in the struggle against the Franco
regime, disappears, probably assassinated by the
Spanish Civil Guard. Later, following a trip to
Chile during the presidency of Salvador Allende,
Marie and Fernando (Anna’s parents) convert their
political convictions into action. And so the
tranquility comes to an end in the home on the
outskirts of Paris, now filled with “red and
bearded” comrades, people who dream of Fidel
Castro’s Revolution.
And
so ends the age of religious education and, above
all, the tranquil calm that characterized the young
girl’s life.
It’s
Allende’s fault! It’s Fidel’s fault!
It
is not exactly the autobiography of Julie Gavras
during the 1970s but the life of young Anna, as told
by Domitilla Calamai, in a film adaptation. But for
someone who was 11 years old at the time that her
filmmaker father was shooting Missing” it was
without doubt, the first film that I understood”,
says Julie Gavras.
“When I was younger, Costa’s films were a bit dark,
even a bit too long (she laughs). That story taught
me about the date September 11, 1973. I learnt what
a coup d’état was, what a military junta was. I
didn’t make a political commitment when I was 11
years old, far from it, but what’s certain is that I
discovered how the world worked because of that
event. “
Without even realizing it, as happened with the
young Julie in real life, Anna, upset but curious,
is to discover new values: the importance of
sharing, the feeling of belonging to a group. She
even absorbs some knowledge of communist thinking
and ends up crying when she hears the Chilean song
“Venceremos.” Another point, the chords of the
legendary song of the Spanish Civil War ring out
around the house. “The communism of the Ebro Army,
imperialism, women’s rights; she tries to fit these
vast concepts into her small world,” writes Cecile
Mury in the French weekly Télérama.
With
just a few documentaries behind her, Julie Gavras
has undertaken a feasible and accessible task (with
autobiographical elements), while at the same time
ambitious. And she has done so without a safety net,
without putting her parents in front of a tape
recorder, without the help of filmmaker Gavras
behind the camera.
La
faute à Fidel!
(1:39 hours) is a reflection on political commitment
and all that that implies; the reasons that are the
basis for this and utopia. It is about the rebellion
of adults seen through the eyes of a little girl.
Seen, of course, from afar, in a subjective way and
from a distance that is at once entertaining,
conspiratorial and critical. It is the reflection of
an era (the 1970s) “seen by” and not “made by.” The
young Gavras wanted to explore a new track in place
of “historical” trails that have already been
analyzed and re-analyzed. Although she harbors a
feeling of understanding towards her parents, whom
at times appear to be disorientated and without
replies for all the questions she puts to them, the
young Anna emphasizes that it is not for this that
she is disposed to forgive them for a certain
“abandonment”. But Anna is growing up, her
perception of the world is becoming enriched and,
following in the footsteps of her parents, she
accepts this new life which she is now analyzing
from a personal point of view.
Is
this a film dealing with nostalgia for something
that now is not what it was before, for an era that
was left behind, or does it concern the search for a
new commitment? “A formidable and regenerative
reflection on commitment, Julie Gavras offers a
passionate debut film,” wrote Patrick Loriot in the
French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur. Other
critics have enjoyed it less or much less. The
principal factor is that this theme has never been
tackled before and Julie Gavras presents us with an
excellent selection of actors: young Nina Kervel as
Anna, Stefano Accorsi as her father Fernando and
another Julie – Julie Depardieu, daughter of
well-known Gerard – in the role of Marie, Anna’s
mother. Nina Kervel is exceptionally convincing in
her interpretation of a difficult character, whose
anxieties in the face of lost illusions and
discoveries transform themselves into new illusions.
It
is good that parents of sons and daughters now in
their 30s, in their time the sons and daughters who
filled themselves with the Cuban Revolution,
Allende’s socialist experience in Chile or the ideas
of France in May 1968, will be able to see this film
together. The discussions to be had when leaving the
cinema will be this film’s first success.
And
it is a film that at every moment is sensitive and
moving. When it encounters any particular cliché it
is because Julie Gavras simply did not want to avoid
it. We find ourselves in between seriousness and
jokes, between humor and small dramas, between the
didactic and complicity. Growing up is always
difficult, above all when politics interrupts the
daily life of children surrounded by their
playthings.
“Throughout the film, the focus is on Anna,
observing her reactions and development, the
progressive construction of her own perception of
things. The spirit of the years following 1968, a
veritable moment of change in mentality and customs
(with the support of the opposition among parents
and grandparents) is convincing and awakens
interest. Without ever submerging itself in any kind
of message, the director concentrates on the
characters, who win all of our affection and are
filled with nuances,” writes Marie Bernard on the
www.avoir-alire.com
website.
It remains for us to analyze the case of Julie
Depardieu. “I very much liked the idea of getting
her to perform a very different kind of role,
because I think this is a very different character
than ones she has played up to now: a mother in a
bourgeois family,” said the director. In some of her
most recent films, Julie Depardieu has effectively
played characters who are much more self-assured and
even whacky (Is it Depardieu’s fault?) Julie Gavras
had the excellent idea of making her play a
character completely distinct from the crazy
Parisian chick with a flower in her hair.
“My specialty was to play the role of the friend who
can’t find anyone to fall in love with her or the
lonely girl,” says a smiling Julie Depardieu in the
press release. “I liked the idea that the film
traces the times by way of a little girl who learns
to renounce the things that she likes. One might
think that she is selfish or a reactionary, but she
is quite simply moving. Her story goes against the
current of the feelings that are en vogue and the
film is much more authentic and sincere because of
that. I like Julie Gavras’ direction, her way of
filming in chronological order. She’s very
hardworking and knows what she wants (¼) Sometimes,
when a film is finished, I feel a bit disappointed.
In this case, it was absolutely not like that and I
really want to see it. I identified with this
disorientated little girl in search of herself. This
is a very beneficial film. Beyond what it offers us
on various levels, it asks the questions that need
to be asked,” commented the actress.
It may be that this character will be considered in
the future as the role that made Julie Depardieu
grow as an actress, as happens in the film with
young Anna. In the future, we will have to look with
a new perspective at this woman who, like her
brother Guillaume – in the Depardieu family,
everyone is an actor – has fought with great
seriousness to make a name for herself in the French
film industry, the major figure of which, as we all
know, is a kind of big beefy sacred monster not
always easy to live with, Gerard, her father.
Among the things that Julie Gavras mentions in the
promotional material from the film (“post-sales
service” as Simone Signoret would say) there is
something that could serve as a conclusion: “All
that was fought for during the struggles of the
1970s is now being put in the dock (¼) But the
legacy of that period continues to be indisputable.
More has been done in 40 years than in 2,000.”
Whose fault is that? •
Film’s official website:
http://www.lafauteafidel-lefilm.com
(1)- During the July Monarchy, there were a series
of riots in Paris during the funeral of republican
General Lamargue, hero of the imperial wars. In the
middle of the clashes, the insurgents were running
out of munitions. Defying the firing of the monarchy
troops, Gavroche advanced with his chest exposed to
seize the weapons of dead soldiers in no man’s land.
He picked them up indifferent to the bullets
whistling past him, while singing an anti-monarchy
ballad.
(2)- Constantin, known as Costa-Gavras, born in
1933 is the director of important films like Z
(1968),) State of Siege (1973), Missing
(1982), The Music Box (1990) y Amen
(2002).
(3- Domitilla Calamai, graduate of the Silvio
d’Amico National Academy of Art. Tutta Colpa di
Fidel is her first novel and was published in
France (Actes du Sud, November 1, 006, translated
from the Italian by Guillaume Chpatline).
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