Released in theaters in March 2017, the editorial team returns to the DVD release of Orphan! Orphan traces in an original way the portrait of the same woman during four periods of her life. Successively a child of the countryside upset by a tragic accident, a teenager on the run, a young woman with bad associations and finally an accomplished teacher, her tumultuous past nevertheless eventually catches up with her.
A role played by 4 actresses
Between construction and identity deconstruction, the different periods of the character are interpreted by four talented actresses, namely: Adèle Haenel, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Solène Rigot, and Vega Cuzytek. This bold choice of staging carries the risk of losing the spectator because it is never clearly explained. Indeed, nothing is done to give a homogeneous character to the life of the character: the cast favors the embodiment of emotions and the evolution of the state of mind of the character rather than physical similarities. In addition, the character keeps changing his name; It wants to be elusive at the risk of being elusive by the public. With these singular choices, Arnaud de Palières questions the identity of the individual: are we the same person throughout our lives or are we a combination of several personalities?
A backward narrative
In this logic of identity analysis, the director builds his film backwards. It begins with the most recent personality to go back to childhood, like introspection. It is a question of analyzing the mechanisms of construction of the character to understand the situation in which the film to begin. Even if this narrative form has been used many times in cinema, it is no less effective and coherent in Orphan.
A raw film
While addressing strong themes: the relationship with the father, the relationship with men, violence, prostitution, the film succeeds in establishing a certain distance, almost "cold", between the character and the spectator which reinforces this feeling of analysis, this desire for understanding more than the development of a real empathy. The image of the film abounds in this direction since it is not a question of embellishing the actresses but on the contrary of playing with a certain veracity, "raw", "unfiltered" images. Orphan therefore has the merit of offering something rare in this field.
In addition to this curious cinematographic object, the DVD edition offers a 40-minute interview with Arnaud de Palières (director) and Christelle Berthevas (co-writer), whose lives inspired the script.
Orphaned Trailer:
