She did not know her partner before filming but their duo works so well that it is easy to believe in their union as well as their dissensions. Suddenly, Mélanie Thierry finds herself alone with Gilles Lellouche in Suddenly alone by Thomas Bigedain, inspired by a bestseller by Isabelle Autissier. Their couple who were shipwrecked on a desert island will have to live together to survive. They don’t know how long and their beautiful love risks gradually shattering in adversity.
“It’s quite exhilarating to be just two actors on a set and to have so many scenes that take us into a great adventure and survival cinema and also into a real closed door,” explains Mélanie Thierry to 20 minutes. The balance of power between her and him thrills this suspense brilliantly orchestrated by the director of Cowboys, staralso known as screenwriter ofA prophet, of Of rust and bones and of The Aries Family.
Extreme filming for an intense film
The actors were spared during filming which lasted several weeks, mainly in Iceland. Mélanie Thierry is not complaining. “We’re going for a survival film, that’s what we signed up for, and when the elements are hostile and it’s cold, it contributes to the state of the characters and we make it our own,” declares -she. At first united, the lovers tear each other apart then reconcile according to their mood which successively passes from hope to discouragement. The lack of water and food quickly becomes a nagging problem that the heroes resolve with the means available and great ingenuity.
“It was an extraordinary experience,” says Mélanie Thierry. Sometimes we were worn out after facing the elements all day without being able to warm up, but it was essential. The shoot had to look like the film we were making, otherwise everything would have sounded fake. » The actors’ efforts were not in vain. Suddenly alone is so well staged and interpreted that the spectator shares the experience of the heroes as if he too were on this rocky peak, lost far from civilization in an inhospitable setting.