“From September last year, I have done nothing but wait for a man: just waiting for him to call me and come to my house. Everything about him was precious to me, his eyes, his mouth, his penis, his childhood memories, his voice...”
These few lines perfectly express the addiction and anticipation the main character experiences: Hélène is a successful woman who teaches Humanities at the Sorbonne. She is a strong, independent woman who has raised her son alone, but also a woman who is heavily reliant on a man who bears no resemblance to her at all; a character portrayed by Sergei Polunin, the celebrated Russian Royal Ballet dancer.
Through her cinematic adaptation of Passion Simple, Danielle Arbid brings this timeless story into the present day, where expectations and feelings of absence are further exacerbated by our digital relationships. She also offers a multi-faceted vision of female sexuality, which questions both traditional representations as well as contemporary demands, in our post #MeToo society where this work may inspire debate once more.
Laetitia Dosch, known at the Festival de Cannes for her role in Jeune Femme (Montparnasse Bienvenüe) by Léonor Serraille, the winner of the Caméra d’or in 2017, expresses the importance of portraying Hélène as a character that reflects the full range of human complexity: neither entirely black or white.