Noée Arbita in “Slalom” by Charlène Favier – Day2feast
- “Slalom” analyzes the relationship of a young high-level skier with her trainer.
- Noée Arbita and Jérémie Renier are amazing in this successful and award-winning first film.
- This work freely inspired by the director’s life is militant but not Manichean.
As you can imagine, top-level sport requires sacrifices. But in Slalom of
Charlene Favier, Lyz, 15 years old (fabulous Noée Arbita), must agree to a lot to succeed in ski study class. And his coach (Jérémie Renier, astonishingly poisonous) wants more, always more and soon too much.
The young actress, discovered in Ava by Léa Mysius, and the seasoned actor, recently admired in The Order of Physicians by David Roux, form a fascinating cinema couple to denounce harassment in the world of sport in general and skiing in particular.
Autobio but not too much
The director drew on her own athletic experience to Slalom : she practiced skiing at a high level until she was 15 years old. She denies having signed an autobiographical work. “I have known this relationship between coach and coach, she confides in 20 minutes. I have also been able to experience the abuse and control in my own life and not just in the world of sport. “Her film tackles these subjects in a militant way to denounce the slippages, but she never falls into Manichaeism as her characters turn out to be complex.
The sound is good
“I wanted to be as close as possible to Lyz whatever the experiences she is going through, insists Charlène Favier. I really tried to show it from his point of view. The mountains, an overwhelming presence, dominate the heroine who struggles to regain control of her life as she glides at full speed down snowy slopes. The very worked soundtrack also makes it possible to feel the suffocation of the young woman, her heartbeats, her environment, enough to make her anguish palpable for a spectator who takes all the more his side.
Perseverance rewarded
Charlène Favier had a hard time financing her film. “When I wrote the screenplay in 2015, the producers were very cautious, because the subject was scary. The advent of #MeToo was a game-changer, ”she recalls. Feature films like The Tickles by Andréa Bescond and Eric Métayer helped to release a voice that allows victims to share their pain.
Slalom delves into the world of skiing, but above all speaks of resilience, a theme so universal and so well treated that the film collects deserved awards such as the Cannes 2020 label, the Lumière female revelation of the year for Noée Arbita and the prize Ornano-Valenti in Deauville.