completely burned! : This 900,000-copy bestseller hits theaters

What is it about? After losing his wife, Andrew Blake has no heart left. A final impulse prompts him to leave London and return to France, to the property where he met. This journey back to the memory of happier days doesn’t quite go as planned… To stay at the Beauvilliers estate, Blake feels guilty enough to judge the butler’s game.

Enter Mme Beauvilliers, mistress of the house, with behavior as strange as her relations, Odile, a strong-tempered cook, Philippe, a somewhat oppressed guardian who lives like a hermit at the end of the park, and Manon, a young cleaner. A lady whose fortunes change, Blake discovers people just as lost as she is. In front of them, in this special place, this person who expected nothing from life will be forced to start all over again…

A successful author behind the camera

completely burned! is Gilles Legardinier’s first feature film as a director. A successful author, we are especially indebted to him I stop tomorrow!, I lied again, the first miracleor completely burned!which brings him here to the screen.

Initially, Legardinier did not intend to direct the film: “Several were considered, I liked them all, but we didn’t decide on our own, and after countless hesitations, it became such a mess that, once again, they were my accomplices who asked me to step into the role. I would also like to thank Universal Pictures International France for finally releasing the film on orbit with my trust.

adaptation

The novel on which the film is based was published in 2012 and sold 900,000 copies. Gilles Legardinier specifies that a feature film is not a transposition of a book: “Literature is the inner world of the readers’ daily lives. Cinema is a world of images and embodiment that serves the emotions that we find in the theater or on the screen for a few minutes. My film does not aim to illustrate my words scrupulously. , but I hope that it will bring the viewer to the same mental and emotional will lead to the situation as my reader.”

in Moliere’s language

Although John Malkovich speaks and is fluent in French, filming in Complètement Cramé! It presented a challenge because of the many dialogues. The actress worked with Gilles Legardinier’s daughter, a tutor, to refine diction and nuances of pronunciation, every day, even on weekends.

“Doing the whole film in French is one of the aspects of the Gilles project that seduced me. I played more French in his film than in the rest of my filmography combined! It was a huge job, a big challenge, but also. It’s fun. I love to work. I decided to do it in this language My best. If I hadn’t done it on this film, then I never would have done it.”– says the actor who has a special attitude towards our country. Indeed, his ex-wife was of French descent, then he and his wife bought a house in Provence in 1993, which they still own.

See you

For the Beauvilliers estate, production conducted extensive scouting and studied over a hundred châteaux, of all styles, in all regions. In extremis, the last address was correct: it was the estate of Bois Cornillé, in Val-d’Isée, Brittany, between Vitre and Rennes.

“When we first arrived, we entered the long driveway into the property, I experienced a kind of perfect stalking shot in a perfect location. A rather massive structure but with great charm, peaked roofs, towers, granite walls. Upon discovery. The grand entrance with its monumental wooden staircase saw what I had hoped for. I always had. I knew it had to be filmed there.”, recalls the director. It was the first time the venue’s owners, Gilles and Pauline de Malartique, opened their doors for filming.

Mephisto the cat

If certain scenes and secondary characters from the book had to be removed for the film adaptation, there would be no case without Mephisto the cat! “We conducted a casting with an animal specialist and very quickly Nouchka was identified – a wonderful cat, a Persian with a black and golden shade. Really beautiful, she too had a distinct look in her eyes that seemed to wonder what we were all doing in her world, with a sense of disdain.– says the director.

As he treated the star, Nuchka behaved as he wanted on the set: “About ten people—a small team, so as not to disturb the beast!—waited in solemn silence for Madam to be kind enough to grant us the grace to move in the right direction.”