The Event, a powerful experience beyond time and genre

So far, so close. In 2000, the multi-award-winning writer Annie Ernaux decided to go back to 1963, the year she had a clandestine abortion and risked her life. A decade later, Audrey Diwan, struck by this initiatory and immersive story, wanted to bring The Event to the screen. Both brutal and delicate, carrying an essential journey, the filmmaker's second feature film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. 

A fair enthusiasm

Even before the question of abortion and its treatment, what is striking in The Event is a frank intention to immerse the viewer in a portrait, here that of Anne, a young woman in search of freedom in the face of an invisible antagonist. With the only reference point of total immersion at the height of the character, Audrey Diwan invokes only a fragment of the time and accentuates the human dimension. Based on a bold format, the ancestral 1.37:1, the filmmaker works on the body of her protagonist and a dive into the heart of her isolation evoking Gus Van Sant and his Elephant. Yet, assisted by nuanced work by artistic director Omid Gharakhanian and Laurent Tangy, LAC Nord's cinematographer, the sixties have never been so vibrant and palpable. And this is where the culmination of The Event lies, with the discreet but imposing reconstruction. Indeed, shaping singular and tenacious intentions, the film surpasses itself in all its departments, the casting as a spearhead. It is quite rare to quote a casting director, often invisible. However, it was difficult not to mention the work of Élodie Demey as the actors shine in The Event. Starting with the supporting roles, almost all second knives, each finding a place in Anne's entrenchment. To name but one, noticed in André Téchiné's endearing Quand on a 17 ans, Kacey Mottet-Klein is magnetic in a shady and monopolistic character. All launching the reply to a dazzling actress in an almost tailor-made character, Anamaria Vartolomei impresses in total symbiosis, avatar of a libertarian confronting a foggy future.

Audrey Diwan, advent of an author

First a journalist and then a writer, the filmmaker will establish herself as the main screenwriter of Cédric Jimenez, director of La French and more recently BAC Nord. Exploring many themes and heteroclytic universes, Audrey Diwan will launch her career as a filmmaker with Mais vous êtes fous in 2019. A drama that will surprise by its subtlety, on the verge of a sweetness and a cohabiting violence in the manner of his second film already multi-awarded. A subtlety specific to his writing and his personality that is reflected in the cutting of The Event working time, space of play and the complexity of the desire of the human being. The question of the freedom of a young woman, crushed by her social origin, her natural passion and her authenticity, is also at the center of the story. Abortion, the counterpart of a waking nightmare, hovers at the same pace, overlooking time tamed and inevitably dilated to the point of dread. Audrey Diwan's second feature film sounds the death knell of a captivating journey between shadow and light. Facing the brutality of her subject in front of her, while sowing a singular finesse, the director signs an indispensable film. The Event is to be discovered now in theaters.