 |
| Crowds gather outside the Gaumont Opera for a special screening of Patrice Leconte’s Do Not Disturb (Une heure de tranquillité) |
In a city that is putting on its bravest of faces in the wake of last week’s terror attacks the annual Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema opened last night at the Gaumont Opera cinema on one of the Parisian grands boulevards with a classic French farce.
Based on Florian Zeller’s stage piece which in turn had its roots in Simon Gray’s play Otherwise Engaged, Do Not Disturb features local comic hero Christian Clavier, reunited with director Patrice Leconte, as a well-heeled dentist desperate to listen to a newly purchased rare long play record of a 1958 New Orleans jazz session. The scene is set for a string of interruptions, which turn the bourgeois apartment in to a battleground of emotions as home truths are bared. Among the ingredients are a mistress, an incompetent Portuguese plumber, wayward spouses and annoying neighbours.
 |
| Christian Clavier in Do Not Disturb (Une Heure De Tranquillité) |
Clavier, in a recorded message from London where he now lives, told the assembled audience of 600 or so film distributors and buyers from all over Europe: “It is a comedy, which is saying something about the world in which we are all living right now. Above all, enjoy the laughs.”
Patrice Leconte, best known outside France for the likes of Ridicule and Girl On The Bridge, has a reputation here as master of broad comedy from Les Bronzés mega-hit onwards.
“I am very happy to see you all here tonight. I adored making this film even though that is something I am not supposed to say. This film was a return to comedy, and it was made with a lot of energy and light-heartedness. When I saw the final cut it was absolutely the film I had imagined. And audiences seem to like it. It opened on New Year’s Eve and already 700,000 people have seen it.”
Carole Bouquet who plays Clavier’s stressed-out spouse, said: “Thank you for being here and not being afraid. We all have to be very courageous in these times. I was at a museum today and it was full of people. Life has to go on and culture is part of that. Patrice loved making the film and he seemed to be giggling all the time. There was one scene where he was holding the camera himself that he had stop shooting because he was shaking so much. I was in some pain during the shoot and the only thing that could make it bearable was to forget it and laugh. When I was not on the set I would position myself behind the monitor and watch the others acting. And that kept me from thinking about my aches and pains.
 |
| Patrice Leconte: "I adored making this film even though that is something I am not supposed to say." |
In a recent interview, Leconte explained why the project attracted him: “What I really liked was the theme behind it: us human beings, leading such frantic lives, so caught up in the awful whirlwind of life that we no longer have the time just for a little bit of calm, to take one’s foot off the accelerator as it were, to find that famous ‘hour of quiet.’ I am myself a very hyperactive type, and that really got home to me, and I said to myself: ‘There’s definitely material for a comedy there.’”
Today, the buyers and distributors are joined by more than 130 journalists, who will be interviewing film talent at the Grand Hotel for titles to be released in their countries during the next few months. More than 1,000 interviews will be carried out over the next few days (until 19 January).
Unifrance also have launched their online event My French Film Festival in which viewers can watch and vote on ten feature films and ten shorts in competition. Subtitled in 13 different languages and accessible worldwide on myfrenchfilmfestival.com, the festival is entirely free of charge in all of Latin America as well as in Africa, China, Poland, Romania, Russia, India and Turkey. In all other countries, the shorts are free and there is a modest charge for a film.
As a special bonus a restored version of Purple Noon (1960), René Clément's classic thriller, which inspired The Talented Mr. Ripley (with Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law), is available to watch free of charge wherever you are.
