This is his sixth film in almost forty years of career. Leos Carax is a rare artist, a filmmaker whose works, as seductive as they are, always conceal an unsuspected depth. Annette is no exception, but watch out for the backlash. The brilliant and flamboyant musical, presented in competition at Cannes, at the same time as it leaves the screens this Wednesday, knows in its second part a reversal of the situation ready to return your heart. Sensitive souls are warned! And it is better to know two or three things so as not to let yourself be too heavily defeated.
The first is that Leos Carax is not the author of the screenplay. It was the Sparks brothers who came to offer him this story of love, provocations and tears between a couple of artists whose passion crumbles from the birth of their child. This story in which a stand-up comedian (Adam Driver) turns the laughter against him and against his wife (Marion Cotillard), singer at the height of her glory, Leos Carax has long hesitated to accept to make a film for reasons all personal. Russian actress
Katerina Golubeva, who shared his life, had passed away shortly before, and Leos Carax feared that Annette’s story could trouble his 9-year-old daughter. “Could I really make a film about such a bad father at that time in my life? He asks in the press kit. But as I listened to the songs over and over, my daughter ended up loving them as much as me and asking me questions… ”Annette is dedicated to her and we understand better why we see them hugging each other at the end of the song So May We Start which makes the very beautiful opening of the film.
An acceptable “bad father”
Beyond the darkness of the film, the whole challenge for Leos Carax therefore consisted in making this “so bad father” acceptable. “How to create a Henry who, despite everything, would be close to me?” “No doubt by finding similarities with the heroes of his previous films. Adam Driver’s “extraordinary physique” recalls that of Guillaume Depardieu in Pola X. The American actor also masters the art of mime with the same talent as Denis Lavant in Boy meets girl and in Bad blood, which is worth Annette memorable scenes of… tickling! And the eyes feast on the long duo traveling shot between Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard on a motorbike launched like a galloping horse, another familiar motif borrowed from Bad blood… Finally, a word about the character of Ann, close to the previous heroines of Leos Carax for her evanescent beauty. “Marion Cotillard has the grace and the mystery of a silent actress,” exclaims Leos Carax. He was already saying the same thing about Mireille Perrier for Boys meets girl or Juliette Binoche for her subsequent films. It is this familiarity that makes the plot much less cynical than it seems and much more bearable.