The first feature film by Vincent Macaigne, known above all for his work as an actor and director in the theater, was released this Wednesday in theaters. After his short film What Will Remain of Us, Pour le réconformt is inspired by Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and questions today's society by addressing the class struggle. Two children from the neo-bourgeoisie Pauline (Pauline Lorillard) and Pascal (Pascal Rénéric), having squandered the fortune they inherited and not having paid the drafts of the family home, return to their estate in Orleans to organize the sale. They then confront their childhood friends, of modest origins, who have never left their countryside.
The film, which was presented at the ACID (Association of Independent Cinema for its Distribution) during the 70th Cannes Film Festival, stands out as THE independent cinema film of the moment!
Shouting at each other to exist
For Comfort is about divisive issues. How to make your place when you are in your thirties in a French society that is aging in a retirement home? Is the figure of the petty bourgeois owner "who gives himself up" really as detestable as it seems to be? Is the proletarian who has built himself by the sweat of his arms and his work as respectable as he claims? Is pursuing ecological approaches enough to make you a person with nobler virtues? Pauline, Emmanuel, Laure, Laurent, Pascal, Joséphine, all without exception insult each other, they settle their accounts, it screams, it mouths loudly even and it becomes funny, sadly funny. We expected no less from the fiery director Vincent Macaigne and we perceive all the theatrical and tragic influence that he was able to infuse into his film. The narrative is built around long monologue sequences but the characters throughout the film are never alone. This may be where the comfort arises: to disagree, to shout but to shout to feel alive and create collective action.
A troupe film
Vincent Macaigne describes his film as a "gesture", an experience resulting from the desire to film and record these faces of actors he knows so well and who have evolved together artistically on many projects. He gathers the time of two weeks of filming with no more than two technicians personalities that he lets express themselves in front of the camera in a frame in 4/3 to emphasize the importance of the words, the environment being secondary. It is therefore in this context of improvisation, movement without really knowing the final destination that the material is created that the director will use to write his story during the editing.
Provoke debate
By not placing any of his characters above the others, Macaigne achieves a real tour de force in terms of editing, which took him 4 years of work. There are no winners in the debates, all the characters have an execrable and touching part at the same time. The film concludes with what is most brutal in itself, the departure of Pascal and Pauline, without well-defined ideas for the viewer about what to do next. The director closes his film with a frame closure that recalls the closing of the curtain in the theater without really providing answers to the debates. Macaigne passes the baton to the spectator: it is now up to him to question himself and the other to continue this action, this "gesture" initiated by the film.
Vincent Macaigne has the merit of making such a film exist, minimalist in technique and great in intention. Pour le confort provokes reflection and discussion among the audience through scathing dialogues and not necessarily of high intellectual flight, and this is what makes all its strength! We had almost forgotten that we could rant at the cinema and make a film outside the traditional production circuits, so just for that, thank you Vincent!
Trailer For Comfort:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwuQc-cV_bU
