Prisoners with Melanie Thierry: This true story inspired another movie!  which one

Prisoners with Melanie Thierry: This true story inspired another movie! which one

What is it about?

Paris, 1894. Who is the fan who claims to have voluntarily allowed himself to be locked up in the Salpetriere Hospital? Searching for her mother among a multitude of women convinced of “madness,” Fan discovers the reality of the asylum she imagined, as well as the unexpected camaraderie of fellow travelers in trouble. The last great ball is being prepared in Salpetriere. Politicians, artists and socialites will gather there. The last hope to escape the trap that closes…

7 years after Orphelin, director Arnaud de Pallier returns with Captives, an all-female film inspired by the true story of Bal des Folles, which formed the basis of the successful first novel (Victoria Mas) and Melanie Laurent’s film. , which, unlike Prisoners, is a direct adaptation of the book.

Lea Seydoux was initially approached

The gestation of this film was quite long. When the project was in its early stages, Léa Seydoux was supposed to play the main role, which was eventually given to Melanie Thierry. Charlotte Rampling and Cécile de France were also announced in the casting.

It ends up consisting of Josian Balasco and Marina Foys, both in inappropriate roles, and Carol Bouquet. The Captives is also an opportunity to see Solenn Rigaud again, who played one of the main roles in Orpheline, Arnaud de Pallier’s previous feature.

Chaotic production

The filmmaker does not hide that the production of this film was difficult. He even describes it as chaotic because the project had two shutdowns: “Our joint decision, together with Jonathan Blumenthal and Philippe Roussel, finally allowed us to shoot in the summer of 2022, with a firm commitment from Canal+, except for France 2 and three regions: Île de France, Hauts-de-France and Normandy. With no receipts for the film in advance, the planned nine-week shoot was reduced to seven, which led me to a working method that “gave me” the film’s specific cinematic script.“, recalls Arnaud de Pallier.

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A competing project

If the movie pitch reminds you of something, it makes sense. Prisoners actually had a parallel project, first as a book, then as a film. Arnaud de Pallier and Christelle Berthevas had finished writing the first draft of their screenplay when they heard about the release of Victoria Massey’s novel Le Bal des Folles (which spawned a Melanie Laurent film of the same name on Amazon Prime). , which they preferred not to read. The director explains: “Since we already had an outline of our script, our producer didn’t think it was relevant to take the rights to the book. So the publisher went to another producer…which led to a side project. The idea was not pleasant. We, but we stayed focused on our project.”

and added: “We wanted to tell the daily life of these poor women trapped in Salpetriere, according to criteria that today would be the purest arbitrariness, during the last “ball” that took place in 1894, after death. Sharko. A typical ball at the end of the 19th century in Paris, where people liked to hang out in dens of hooliganism, visiting with their families the natives of the colonies kept in “human zoos”. Go and see the madmen behind their gates for a laugh. If a few young progressive doctors decide to put an end to this, the 20th century will dawn. The film takes place at this crucial momentThe film is therefore more complementary to Melanie Laurent’s novel and film than an entirely competing project.

Did the Mad Lady’s Ball really happen?

Captives, like Le Bal des Folles, takes as its point of departure real events. As we recalled in the premiere video for the release of the film Le Bal des Folles in September 2021, this event really took place in the 1880s. It was organized at the end of February, during the Mardi Gras holiday. celebration. For Jean-Martin Charcot, this initiative was a chance to offer his patients a series of activities such as cooking. All were dressed in masks and danced before the astonished eyes of the onlookers, who expected an abnormal reaction or an inappropriate gesture from them.

Professor Charcot, who refused to attend these evenings, was in the habit of inviting strangers to his numerous experiments. Thus, he publicly practiced hypnosis or electrostimulation. These confident exhibitions were an opportunity for him to expand the prestigious reputation of his institution. However, it should be noted that unlike Melanie Laurent’s film, Arnaud de Pallier’s Prisoners chooses to focus more on the former.

A fan pretending to be “crazy” enters the Salpetriere in search of his mother, whose administration has lost track of her because her identity was falsified in the registers at the family’s request. Intended to reveal her identity as a sane bourgeois woman, when the time comes, Fan realizes that she has fallen into a trap where, like her, every internee claims they are not insane. The film tells us about the daily life of the “crazy” through the eyes of a fan. Like a barely magnified picture of the condition of women yesterday and todayi”, specifies the filmmaker in the press kit of the film.

Captives is released this Wednesday, January 24, 2024.

Source: Allocine

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