After seducing festival-goers in Angoulême and Valenciennes, Le Sixième baby makes its way into your rooms. Focus on this breathless love movie with those who talk about it best: actor Benjamin Laverne and its director Léopold Legrand.
It was screened out of competition at the Festival 2 Cinéma de Valenciennes from September 23rd to 28th and received unanimous acclaim. Before that, she won every prize in Angoulême, including Valois for Best Actress, which went to Judith Chemla and Sarah Giraud. It hits theaters this week and we hope it continues its good streak.
The Sixth Child is the first feature film of Léopold Legrand, a promising director who knew how to perfectly stage the desire to become a mother at any cost, against all odds. And chose to embody this love story in the form of a thriller, with four dimensions of French cinema that we still do not see enough of: the aforementioned duo of women Judith Chemla / Sarah Giraud, as weak as they are strong and determined; And the male duo Damien Bonnard / Benjamin Laverne, sometimes active, sometimes anxious. It was the latter that we met at the Festival 2 Cinéma de Valenciennes, with the pleasure of defending his film with his director and mentor. I met you.
Leopold Legrand. Note that this surname has not been usurped. After studying literature and training at INSAS, a public film school in Brussels, he made two very good short films: a documentary about a child on state aid in Poland; Angelica. and an adaptation of the Chronicle story “Community restrictions, security withdrawals where we put codes on every door that prevents us from helping”under the name Death codes. Until The Sixth Child, which he watched in 2018 and which hits theaters this Wednesday.
The story is the story of Frank, a scrap dealer, and Maryam. They have five children, a sixth on the way, and serious financial problems. Julien and Anna are lawyers and cannot have children. Their meeting is an incredible arrangement.
I grew up with this idea of two mothers
“The starting point of my film is a novelAlain Jaspard, weeping rivers. When I discovered it, I was very disturbed by the trajectory of these two women around this child. I lost my mother when I was 6 years old, and then she was adopted by a woman according to the law. So I grew up with this idea of two mothers.”– the film director told us.
“I was also shaken by the pitch of the novel, this traffic, the baby swap in the truck. And as the pages turned, my judgment deteriorated. I wanted to look deeply into her characters, beyond the prejudices.”
The bet was won. When we see his uplifting film questioning morality, it quickly becomes difficult to judge. A story of love or crime, couples or friendship, madness or desire, our landmarks are abused.
“As long as it’s a transgressive story, it’s really a love story. There’s a lot of love on both sides. On the one hand, this family who lives for their five children, to support them. On the other hand, this couple who have gone through a lot of hardships together and made sacrifices. Then comes this meeting , which will solve everything. The couples will also move: it starts with two families, then with these two women and with these two men.“
Two men who start this story and set it up, but very quickly, “Because they do not experience things in the flesh, they will be troubled and have regrets and doubts.” Despite everything while being “there”.
A love story in the form of a thriller
“The two plights of these women spoke to me a lot. The desire beyond reason, and also the anger of the woman carrying her child and her apparent belief that she will be happier away from him. I wanted to meet these plights. Tell them like a thriller. I believe that the breathing side of the film is very powerful. It feeds the whole thing, the fact of leaving a lot of things behind the screen or in ellipsis. It feeds the closeness we have with them.”
The closeness we immediately feel to these characters and their troubling project, and which works to convince us, question them, haunt them. What will happen to them, will they go to the end, will everything go well? Constructed like a social thriller, the film includes the mental journey of the characters, their relevance, their unspeakability, all this is in the service of tension in the story, which activates the audience in the cause of sympathy.
Between each couple in the film there are also dreams and then doubts, deep disagreements, as we said, but also a lot of love and intimacy that does not need a dedicated scene, especially in bed.
“From the beginning of the novel, there was a love scene between Anna (Sarah Giraud) and Julien (Benjamin Laverne), but I chose not to do it.– Léopold Legrand clarified, wanting not to intrude further on this couple, especially this woman who had already suffered so much from a medical point of view, when precisely she wanted to reproduce.
The quartet of actors were (re)united very quickly
However, there is indeed a real intimacy, led by this quartet of actors, who always admired Léopold Legrand, with whom he united very quickly, with whom he exchanged a lot, everyone was more interested in history, their identity. characters rather than their individual way of playing. Thus, according to him, the sensitivity to their problems, their understanding, their love has always been the red thread of filming, staging choices and exchanges.
“For Merriem and Frank, the characters played by Judith and Damien, it was a little bit special because they were playing people in the Traveler community, there was a lot of work. Damien had that look that I wanted to stand out. Life Outside, Judith, that was more of a composite piece and I I knew his ability to do real documentary work above and try to say things without pathos and misery.”
“Benjamin and Sarah, it was a desire to work with a young couple to evacuate the issue of the age limit. I wanted to put everything in place to make the issue of desire as strong as possible. I wanted to tell a story. A woman who has such a visceral desire to go beyond reason and not because of an age limit. He achieved it. In the novel he was an illustrator of children’s books, I wanted him to be a lawyer because he knows the law. And what he is going to break.”
One of the best roles in his career
Next to this intense, thin and determined heroine played by Sarah Giraud, Benjamin Laverne stands out with a controlled suspicion and an impressive anger: “I fell in love with this young hero very quickly. I got to know him very quickly, his way of overcoming obstacles, this man who deeply loves his wife and sees that she is caught up in some kind of madness, something unreasonable.
The fact that he is also a lawyer, a guarantor of the law, passed the exam, is very good. I liked this guy and the script cast him up a storm. His love is tested, but it remains no matter what.” The actor told us that he was satisfied with his film, which he felt was fair.One of the most beautiful roles of my career”. “I’m glad he brought me there. At first I got the impression that he was restrained because of his restraint, but he wasn’t. I liked where he put me, I liked how he addressed me.”
Known to the general public for his comedic roles (Le sens de la fête, My Unknown Mind) and his ability to evoke laughter even in situations that are not funny, Lavernhe offers an effect here in a more restrained unit.
“The public knows Benjamin for his roles in comedies, but he is an abundant actor, full of ideas, always bringing something extra and often causing laughter, breaking the drama. Humor that is either cynical or unusual, very touching, very funny.
But on film, his potential to be a person who brings many things together appealed to me. I wanted it to be on the bone, rough. It was a lot of work not to add anything more, without facial expressions, as close as possible to simple speech. He always said about the movie “Ah, I’ll bribe you, I can’t do anything.” We laughed about it because we both had a lot of confidence. This is not a counter-use, but a place where we are less familiar with it. ” says Léopold Legrand.
In order to better understand the nuances of his character, the actor asked many questions during the creative process: “Leopold was a partner, passionate, happy to answer me. He was open, but he knew what he wanted. He was able to win the day, to convince. I love when I feel that I am part of the creation. I am not just a performer. I put salt. I am sure that I will allow myself I give it. It’s also a way to test the limits.”
The director has no limits when it comes to testing us, bringing us as close as possible to this hero; Because of the wanderings of her doubts and judgments, she was also a spectator, both bewildered and involved, reasonable yet in love, eager to understand.
A destabilizing, impactful and moving Sixième baby is playing in your cinemas today.
Source: allocine
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
