To see at the cinema: 5 Acres with Lambert Wilson, a film inspired by a true story?

5 years after Jamais contente, director Emilie Deleuze is back behind the camera with 5 Hectares! Lambert Wilson stars in this country comedy alongside Marina Hands.

What drives an established man to risk his comfort, career and relationship? Lust, all the more burning because it’s late, on five acres of limousine land. But land is earned, especially when you come from the city. Here, Frank rushed to search for the Grail. He needs a tractor.

Inspired by a true story?

Emily Deleuze came up with the idea for 5 Hectares after a moment with screenwriter Marie Desplechin. The latter’s friend had this connection with the land after buying a house in the countryside.

“Five acres is not a lot. Today, the average farmer who raises animals cannot live decently on less than 200 acres. Taking care of his five acres became a necessity for this friend. He was a bit like Frank, a character, wasn’t he. Name the reasons, because it was obvious to him.”The director explains.

“The idea of ​​buying a tractor came after it became legitimate in the eyes of the peasant district. We tell ourselves that this tractor will not be enough to make it reliable as a farmer. Especially since he is. He doesn’t tend the land and he won’t! Tilling the land is a skill, you don’t become a farmer overnight! Marie, me, his entourage, we entered his dream, which quickly became our nightmare.”Emily Deleuze continues.

The part-time rural filmmaker enlisted friends in this research, which took more than six months. “At that time, I could not imagine that this type of tractor would be such a valuable thing. Everything took on crazy proportions: the definition of this man, this real Frank, the guy who sells his tractor and then retreats. … All this that is in the film existed”The filmmaker emphasizes.

Reality as a playground

5 Hectares teaches us a surprising and funny point of the law: in rural areas, when you cultivate the land, you become its owner by usufruct. This is a law that originates from Roman law.

“Negotiations to buy a tractor produce scenes that are both comical and tragic. This is what I said about one man’s dream, another’s nightmare; On the one hand there’s Frank, in love with a tractor and into something. With the salesman and Paul, the salesman, he was stuck in an inability to do anything.”Emily Deleuze points out.

For this character, the director and his team were also inspired by an existing person. “He built a magical place with his own hands so that I didn’t have to do anything. I didn’t know such a neurosis: agitation that there was peace and nothing to do. His place, a horse club for tourists, is never. It’s over, so there is no customer, and we him alone we leave”The artist explains.

“It’s a perfect wasteland, like a museum. It’s a character worthy of great tragedies. The two women are excluded. They helplessly witness the two madnesses of each other. It’s tragic and funny.”Emily Deleuze confirms.

5 Hectares was released in theaters on December 27.