Out of Competition: Don’t Look Back
Marina de Van's "Don't Look Back" screens Out of Competition
Highly acclaimed in 2002 for her first film, Dans ma peau, director Marina de Van is now in Cannes to screen Don’t Look Back, which stars Monica Belluci and Sophie Marceau in a film about the elusiveness of identity, as the two of them continually switch places and faces, and appearances are deceiving.
In the midst of writing a novel, Jeanne notices mysterious changes both around her and in her own body, to which her family seems oblivious.
"I wanted to deal with the fear of being unmasked," de Van explains. "The anxiety we have that all the familiar things around us might one day seem foreign and other, including ourselves. Jeanne watches as everything in her immediate universe is gradually altered. Her experience begins with such prosaic events as the kitchen table changing position. Then, she notices changes in eye color. As time passes, bringing a series of tiny variations, her entire reality is "unmasked." Her environment tips over into the unknown – even her own face, which becomes distorted and unfamiliar until it is another woman’s. In fact, this is the phase I was especially focused on: the moment when she welcomes the stranger into herself, without succumbing to her – as if the two faces had to struggle to prevail over a single person."
