Crazy on the M6: Marie Guillen under the influence of a narcissistic pervert in a must-see TV movie!

Co-written with Guillaume Labe (I promise), À la folie, inspired by actress and screenwriter Eleanor Bauer’s own experiences, tells the psychological transformation of Anna, a photographer and successful mother who gradually falls under Damien’s psychological influence. , an all-around attractive man who turns out to be the perfect narcissistic pervert.

Winner of the best screenplay prize at last year’s La Rochelle festival, À la Folie deals with the theme of control in couples, detailing all the mechanisms of oppression and control, even in intimate relationships, with chilling precision. The dazzling Marie Guillen, crowned best actress, gives herself completely as Anna in the form of Alexis Michalik, both chilling and seductive as her executioner.

It all started when Julie Coudrey, producer of the Golden Network, approached Andrea Besconde and Eric Metayer, actors, screenwriters and directors in theater and cinema, when they recently released their first feature film Les Chatouilles – adapted from Andrea Besconde’s work of the same name. – It was proposed to adapt this project as a unit.

“It clicks to be read“says the director, who was in the process of shooting the second feature film, When You Grow Up.We rediscovered some of the tone we had in Les Chatouilles, which is the tone of life.“- said his employee.

“We have been involved in this activism against violence against children and women for years. We are well aware of these control mechanisms, we have studied them. And we see that Eleanor has this distance from the story she lived, where she describes the humiliations, the conflicting orders, the isolation… With the association of our various acquaintances, we all came together into something grand.” he continues.”The writing also helped because Eleanor and Guillaume are hilarious. We said ourselves that we could add a lot more to the top“- Eric Meteyer concludes.

After the release of Les Chatouilles, the filmmakers remain in contact with associations that work on child abuse. “Everything is connected– explains Andrea Bescondi.Violence against women and family. We get a lot of testimonials. We know all these mechanisms by heart. And we tell ourselves that fiction is our weapon. It is a political weapon.”

With the duo agreeing to the project, some are surprised to see them move to television after zooming in on the cinema. “We don’t care about form– answers Andrea Bescondi.The main thing is the topic that we are going to protect together. We tell them good (on M6, editor’s note)But we will be very demanding: we want our staging, control over the script, and if there are things that don’t suit us, we can rework them.“

To their surprise, the channel does not set their specifications with the TV movie format in mind. “They could be surprised by some bias in our cinema, and they did. But despite all this, they never confronted us– admits Andrea Bescondi.We want the public to be able to walk in the image, explore the environment… we trust it.“

Then begins the intense collective work, with a very compressed number of shooting days, facilitated by extremely rigorous upstream preparation. Part of a film crew referred to as “Praetorian Guard“Of the two directors, he was from Les Chatouilles and knew exactly how the duo worked.

According to Eric Meteier, the rigor also has to do with their experience in the theater. “Gallery, complexity of the theater and very few days. Because we don’t come from a subsidized one, we come from a private theater, where they tell us that we have a month to rehearse and that we won’t have a shooting space because another play is going on.”Constraints make us efficient“, Andrea Bescondi summarizes.

On the casting side, the duo wanted to have “rolls” on the tray. Specific actors, be it from the first to the last role. The two quickly came up with Belgian actress Marie Guillen for the role of Anna, at the suggestion of their casting director. “It was so obvious that we never saw any of the actresses again!Andrea Bescondi laughs.

As for the role of Damien, Eric Meteyer and he knew Alexis Michalik in the theater as a playwright, but had never worked with him before, who is becoming increasingly rare on screen as an actor. “We turned around, we had a lot of respect for each other, but it was important to him that we wanted to work with him after the public before his big recognition, to show that this was not a relationship of interest on our part.“, Eric Meteyer explains.

“We realize that the same actors are often offered to play this type of character. We wanted someone different and with a dose of sensitivity and Alexis has that charisma with a coolAndrea Bescondi adds.

The two actors describe the feeling of symbiosis during the first reading of the script. “Bastards are so much fun to play, especially when they’re so well written. But if we do it with someone who is not with us at all, it is very difficult– Alexis Michalik jokes to our microphone.The danger with such sentences is when the theme is so strong that it completely overshadows the story. Here, in this case, first of all, it is a film, strong enough to talk about a very strong subject without demagoguery.“

While reading the script, the actor himself deeply questioned the mechanisms of psychological torture introduced by Damien. “He has this desire to put others in a state of psychological instability. He goes out looking for people who are a little vulnerable, who need love and he breaks them. I asked myself: have I ever made people suffer like this? Do I already have these gears?

It’s all our little flaws that are part of our inner beauty that these individuals interfere with.

For Marie Guillain, it is not immediately obvious to the viewer that Anna is a vulnerable person. “He’s grounded, he’s okay with his life, he’s on good terms with his ex, but he’s going to be very sensitive to how Damien looks. And then, we all dream of living a beautiful and great love story.“

One characteristic predatory pattern of narcissistic perversion is preying on single women who already have children. This is where Anna’s shortcoming is, according to the actress. “Because of the conversation with a woman who was under the influence of one of them, from the beginning it can be very sunny, bright women who have a real environment, attract attention … in fact, they can not. Exercising their power only by feeding and taking away from these women all their share of light. It’s all our little flaws that are part of our inner beauty that these individuals interfere with.

Throughout the story, the metaphor of the matador and the bull in the arena foreshadows the scenes of psychological impact that Damien subjects Anna to. “I think Damien is a bit of both, part matador and part bull. He is a victim of his own system: I don’t think he is happy. His goal is to lock his victim in an arena and play with him until he feels like killing himself.Alexis Michalik analyzes.

For Marie Guillain, À la folie is an essential tool for romantic relationships, even though she has never faced this type of narcissistic profile in her life. “See you Its foundation and its support, it’s the most difficult thing in a relationship, and seeing how far it can go when you fall into the hands of people so neurotic that they become executioners will help.“.

The TV movie ends with an incriminating answer given by the investigator, added to the script by Andrea Bescond and Eric Metayer. “It wasn’t in the script, but we really wanted to put it in because it was important to say that there are men who are angry about it, to say that it’s not a plot by any means and that the law is a system made by men who protect themselves.“- concludes the director.