A disturbing tete-a-tete between a mother and her daughter. Adapted from the eponymous novel by American Laura Kasischke, spirit of winter, a miniseries in three episodes, is put online on Arte.tv this Thursday before its broadcast on the Franco-German channel on November 10 at 8:55 p.m. It features Audrey Fleurot in the role of Nathalie (the mother) and Lily Taïeb in that of the daughter (Alice), the protagonist of a strange winter camera, meticulously directed by Cyril Mennegun (Louise WimmerCésar 2013 for best first film, consolation). For the heroine HPI, it is a misuse allowing him to reveal new facets of his talent. She is amazing in this snowy psychological thriller with accents of dark and frozen tale.
“We wanted to go into the genre, but with themes that both of us are a bit obsessed with, around figures of female artists, mother-child relationships. Cyril, who is a great reader, suggested spirit of winter and it was obvious”, says screenwriter Florence Vignon that 20 minutes met during a round table at the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival.
Audrey Fleurot as a Hitchcock blonde
In spirit of winter, Audrey Fleurot therefore portrays Nathalie, a tortured novelist who has been out of inspiration for years, who regains her ability to imagine a story on Christmas Eve and lets the words run on the paper until dawn. Hundreds of kilometers away, in a Romanian orphanage, 16-year-old Iona ends her life.
“I told myself that I was going to be able to work on something that was little asked of me, or that I hadn’t necessarily had the opportunity to explore,” rejoices the actress. Nathalie, troubled and disturbing, has everything of a Hitchcockian heroine: “This character is constantly on the edge, in a place of fragility and femininity that is not obvious to me”, confides Audrey Fleurot.
For this role, his interpreter is dyed blonde. “I was very happy with this change of head, because not recognizing yourself in the mirror helps considerably to embody a character. I had the impression of seeing a thousand and one other actresses, a kind of eternal feminine too. To forget myself, it was great… Even if I don’t define myself solely by my hair color! “, she explains.
“Audrey really gives everything, she has a very impressive way of working. She jokes and we wonder when she concentrates. And at the same time, when the camera starts, it is there, 100% present”, greets director Cyril Mennegun.
“Impossible motherhood and broken childhood”
Upon waking up in their isolated chalet in the mountains, Marc (Cédric Kahn), her husband, leaves to pick up his parents at the airport while Nathalie begins the preparations for Christmas lunch, hoping that Alice, their 16-year-old daughter, will agree to help him.
An increasingly curious camera is then set up where the images of the character from Nathalie’s novel mingle, who has the features of Iona, a heavy tete-a-tete between a mother and her teenage daughter, but also disturbing events like this strange figure appearing in front of one of the windows of the chalet, as well as flashbacks where we learn that Alice has been adopted.
“This woman has a very strong desire to adopt this child, with whom contact has not been made as she wished, because she viscerally feels that there is something wrong”, comments Audrey Flower. spirit of winter explores the question of impossible motherhood and broken childhood, the bond between a mother and an adopted child, and the difficult relationship between a mother and her teenage daughter.
“We go through all the phases that you can face as a mother! Either you love too much or not enough, you are never in the right place, etc. Anyway, it’s all the fault of the mothers, ”laughs the actress. And to add: “It is a mother who tries to continue to have this bond of complicity in the face of a young adult in the process of escaping her, who needs to build herself. »
“My character is 16 years old. When we come out of adolescence, we have completely forgotten why we were angry, but we were angry for years, ”says Lily Taïeb. Mother and daughter clash here just as much as they try to express their love.
Alice’s Maze
spirit of winter was almost entirely shot in the studio. “We have more notions of time in a studio. We are locked in a cube, in a fake house. It’s funny this mise en abyme, it’s a setting and there’s this meta thing about creation, it’s quite disturbing, ”adds Audrey Fleurot.
The decor of the chalet was designed as a kind of labyrinth, a nod to the masterpiece of Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. “This house represents Nathalie, who she is inside herself. There is something very locked, very isolated, very closed, ”underlines Cyril Mennegun.
As the episodes go by, the atmosphere becomes more and more suffocating, the boundary between illusion and reality more and more porous… Cyril Mennegun builds a skilful treasure hunt made of signs of symbols – like the plot tied around Christmas Day (and the Nativity) and a mother haunted by an adoption in an orphanage run by nuns. A deep and dark miniseries that can be revisited and completely reinterpreted in light of its final twist.