Virginie Efira and Tahar Rahim in a feminine and feminist “Don Juan”

Virginie Efira and Tahar Rahim form a superb couple in Don Juan by Serge Bozon, presented at the Certain Regard of the Cannes Film Festival, the day before its theatrical release on Monday. This subtle reinterpretation of Molière’s play proposes to reverse the roles and their love will turn sour when she decides to leave him on the very day of their wedding…

“It is the story of a man who loves a woman who abandons him and who only sees this woman everywhere, confides Virginie Efira to 20 minutes. If we really wanted to put marketing labels, it looks like a feminine and feminist Don Juan. Supported by his co-screenwriter Axelle Ropert, Serge Bozon explores the feeling of love by analyzing the need for seduction that his characters feel.

A fish swimming upstream

Virginie Efira multiplies the roles by changing her appearance with as much charm as talent. She takes on different faces and hairstyles to haunt the inconsolable man who believes he finds his lost love at every corner. “Don Juan is a myth,” insists Tahar Rahim. Even people unfamiliar with the play see him as a manipulative seducer. Serge Bozon made it a fish that swims upstream. This lover is gradually picking up the pieces of his broken heart. But the road to recovery is long and steep.

“The film talks about the mystery of love, wonders what it is to really love”, analyzes Virginie Efira. These two beings who love each other deeply may never be able to build something together despite their good will. Very beautiful sung passages and the presence of Alain Chamfort as a delicately threatening Commander gives additional relief to this complicated love story.

When disunited lovers find themselves on stage to play the Don Juan by Molière – he in the title role, she in that of Elvire – the delicacy of Serge Bozon becomes ethereal to film actors in a state of grace: they declaim the verses as well as the contemporary dialogues. The relationship between men and women has changed since the play was written. The Don Juan embodied by Tahar Rahim becomes endearing because he is dented. It is also about the seduction brought by this fragility that Serge Bozon speaks.

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