Val Kilmer does not only have the distinction of being a star. The documentary Val by Leo Scott and Ting Poo, presented at Cannes last July and available on all VOD platforms this Thursday, demonstrates this brilliantly. The actor has filmed his professional and family life since he was a child, offering exceptional documents on his career, but also in the intimacy of his family and his battle against throat cancer which destroyed his voice.
I recommend … the documentary VAL by @valkilmer It is so raw, so honest. I didn’t want it to end. Check it out. @AmazonStudios pic.twitter.com/q4NKHhhBf3
—Hugh Jackman (@RealHughJackman) September 3, 2021
“Val trusted us, admits co-director Leo Scott in the press kit. It can be hard to look back on things from the past. We thus discover an actor invested in his profession to the point of poisoning the lives of those close to him, especially when he was preparing to become Jim Morrison in The Doors. He also confides his frustration at being stuck in a latex suit that prevented him from moving to batman forever. “I understood that all little boys dream of being Batman, the reality of embodying him in the cinema has nothing to do with this dream. »
A lesson in life and cinema
Val Kilmer agrees to appear ill, exhausted to the point of discomfort in front of the fans of a convention or bitter to see that his career is behind him. Far from diminishing him, these images make him deeply human. Even his colleague Hugh Jackman was upset. “I recommend the documentary Val. It’s so raw, so honest. Didn’t want it to end,” he tweeted. It could not be said better: the portrait of this actor who dares to expose himself in his glory as in his ills is as much a lesson in life as in cinema.