« Ffriends, I hate you! Closed homes, closed doors, jealous possessions of happiness,” writes André Gide in Earth Foods. In the theatre, the family remains a favorite theme, from the tragedies of Aeschylus to those of Anton Chekhov. It still inspires our directors in their fifties today. Wajdi Mouawad recently unveiled his piece Mother at the Hill Theatre. It’s the filmmaker Christophe Honoré’s turn to seize his own family to make it a theatrical object, in the wake of his show The Idolsa show that paid tribute to the artists who died of AIDS whom he admired so much (Jacques Demy, Cyril Collard, Bernard-Marie Koltès, etc.).
On the boards, a cinema that smells of the 1950s and 1960s, with double doors with portholes, old carpet and outdated fabric armchairs. Near the projection booth, the young Christophe Honoré (played by the graceful Youssouf Abi-Ayad) shows seven members of his family some images from a film. An imaginary, impossible film that the director has always dreamed of making over three generations of his family. But for which he confesses to never having succeeded, for fear of failing and statifying his ancestors. A bit like Didier Eribon who, in Back to Reims, returns to his hometown and his home environment, a popular environment, Christophe Honoré plunges back into the daily life of his loved ones, all dead, with the exception of his mother Marie-Do, played with gentle detachment by the young Julien Honoré , younger brother of the filmmaker. Finistère, Nantes, Saint-Herblain… The images projected by the director’s double quickly irritate the characters, wandering ghosts who want to have a say in their version of the facts.
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Stunning Marlene Saldana and Harrison Arevalo
Then burst the family secrets, the hatreds, the tensions, the suicides and stays in psychiatric hospital, but also the hidden tendernesses. Christophe Honoré’s theatrical autofiction takes on its full flavor, on melodies by Alex Beaupain, Sheila or Julio Iglesias and a few dance steps. The cinema is never very far from the theatre, through recorded scenes (we see Vincent Lacoste and Ludivine Sagnier furtively) or filmed live. The dead of Christophe Honoré come back to life before the eyes of the public during this intoxicating spectacle which dialogues with the past. The joys follow the sorrows.
We quickly get attached to this ramshackle family. The few lengths and the sometimes a little messy side do not harm the vibrant orchestral score too much. Chiara Mastroianni begins on the boards with delicacy and restraint. Always so incredible, Marlène Saldana embodies grandmother Odette with passion, while Harrison Arevalo deliciously portrays Puig, the policeman husband banished from the clan. As for Jean-Charles Clichet, already hilarious in Alain Guiraudie’s film Come, I will take you there currently in theaters, he proves that he is a great actor to be reckoned with.
“Le Ciel de Nantes”, until April 3 at the Odéon theater.
