L’Objet du délit (Crescendo): Agnès Jaoui films the silence
More than 20 years after the Award for Best Screenplay, which she won with Jean-Pierre Bacri for Comme une image (Look at me) (2004), nine years after being part of the Feature Films Jury chaired by Almodóvar, Agnès Jaoui presents L’Objet du délit (Crescendo) Out of Competition, an ensemble film with Daniel Auteuil and Eye Haïdara. What she shows is a community no longer able to communicate.
What happens to a community when there’s an accusation of sexual abuse? This question is at the heart of L’Objet du délit (Crescendo). In the middle of rehearsing The Marriage of Figaro, an accusation rocks certainties, reveals inner cracks, and forces everyone to take a stand. Agnès Jaoui deftly navigates this tricky territory, addressing the subject of MeToo without going to trial.
Eye Haïdara plays Cora, a bold and demanding voice among a troupe of outstanding actors. This ensemble work gave her an unexpected part, as someone who could watch the director at work (Agnès Jaoui had directed her in En Thérapie (In Therapy) in a more intimate setting), “She placed a camera in one spot, did not move it and was able to convey what is happening inside 20 people’s heads. At times, there were 50 of us on stage. I had a front row seat observing what I had loved about her as an audience member.”
The director blends different voices, several generations, and various ways of thinking without ever making a decision for the viewer, “Agnès Jaoui is the best person to handle this subject, not only to write about it, but also infuse it with the necessary humor. Because the film is also very funny. You have to have guts to do that. These voices create a very contemporary vision of the society in which we live,” adds Eye Haïdara.
