Picture of the movie Annette © CG Cinéma International
Annette, into the shadows with Leos Carax
Nine years after Holy Motors, the filmmaker opens the Festival de Cannes in style with Annette, a shadowy musical drama shot in English and propelled by the baroque pop of the Sparks.
Although music has always permeated Leos Carax's tragico-romantic work, and sprinkled some of his productions with sublime poetic in-betweens, it had never before served as the real score for one of his feature films.
This has now come to pass with Annette, a rock opera sung almost entirely by the filmmaker, who appropriated the script and compositions of the American duo Sparks, whose eccentricity in sound navigates between electronic, experimental and rock influences.
A film haunted by the multiple identities assumed by Denis Lavant, Holy Motors (2012) was a reminder of just how much Leos Carax is one of the most singular French authors of his generation, but also one of the most misunderstood.
This new musical stage, both enchanting and horrific, once again highlights the sensitivity of the director, whose universe, imbued with a sometimes raw poetry and romanticism, bewitches each of his projects.
The story of Henry (Adam Driver) and Ann (Marion Cotillard), a stand-up comedian and a world-famous singer who have made it big in Hollywood after falling madly in love, and whose lives are transformed by the arrival of their first child, named Annette. A little girl with a natural gift and an exceptional destiny.
The photography for this dark drama, bathed in intense green and black tones reminiscent of Holy Motors, was entrusted to Caroline Champetier, whose third collaboration with Leos Carax since Merde, the segment shot for the sketch film Tokyo! (2009).
With Annette, the director invites us on a journey that transports us into a feverish whirlwind of marital love and fatherhood. And proves that he remains a conductor of incomparable originality.
