Cédric Kahn analyzes cinema
Almost in the wake of his genius The Goldman trialthe other big test film of the year 2023 with Anatomy of a fallCédric Kahn is already back Do of, presented out of competition at the 80th Venice Film Festival. This new film is almost a first for the director Roberto Succo AND Prayer, quite an expert in film noir and dramas with ambiguous characters. In fact, Do of it’s first and foremost a comedymaking it only his second such film after the comedy-drama Family celebration in 2019.
A comic picture therefore, with the protagonist of this book Jonathan Cohen and the chameleonic actor Denis Podalydès, but which goes far beyond the simple comic mechanisms to tell the story of the making of a film, from its complicated financing to the changes of scenery that go through the jealousies of casting, balancing his story with equally joys and sorrows.
Brilliant character writing
Making a film within a film is an exercise that allows filmmakers to offer their own plans, ideas and opinions on what makes a film. For Cédric Kahn, it is people who interest him and he succeeds with Making in an interesting sociological approach to the environment by developing very successful main characters. There are four of them, each has careful development and lines that always ring true.
There is Simon (Denis Podalydès), the director at the end of his career, tired of his work and lost in his relationship. Alain (Jonathan Cohen), the main actor and protagonist of the film, sympathetic but very narcissistic. There is Nadia (Souheila Yacoub), a promising young actress who refuses to have her role reduced by Alain’s whims. And there is Joseph (Stefan Crepon), a young extra who finds himself bombarded from one day to the next director of the making of the filmespecially because Simon decided to piss off the film’s financiers.
With these four protagonists, plus Emmanuelle Bercot and Xavier Beauvois, perfect as honest director and intriguing producer, Cédric Kahn directs a comedy as funny as it is touching. Filming of the film within the film has finished chaos. If in the first part this chaos leads to misunderstandings and comical situations, once the characters know what to expect, Cédric Kahn delves deeper into their personalities to establish four cinematic destinies.
And their antagonisms will eventually be resolved, reflecting what all filmmakers say: “it’s a miracle to make a film“.
A bittersweet comedy with the ideal balance
The film Simon is directing is a social film about its employees’ attempt to take over a factory. Without much budget, we are far from the fantasized splendor of major film productions, and filming progress is painful. We laugh, because Jonathan Cohen finds the ideal tone play a man who is not particularly funny – while remaining himself – in this complex comedy.
His comedic strength is there, but counterbalanced the darker material brought by Denis Podalydès. Far from home, tired physically and psychologically, in a bad relationship with the mother of his children, ready to abandon everything, the actor and member of the Comédie-Française does so in Do of the painting of a touching solitude.
A diva on one side, an exhausted director on the other. Cédric Kahn describes perfectly what the world of cinema is like a difficult, laborious and unfair environment, where we often move forward blindly. But on the other hand it shows a determined youth, which on the one hand does not allow itself to be trampled upon – Souheila Yacoub is exceptional – and on the other hand still sincerely believes in cinema and its emotions, through the all-consuming passion of the character played by Stefano Crepon.
These characters compare, love and hate each other, and the comic and dramatic intersections of their individual trajectories create Do of a gripping comedy. In fact, without ever letting go of the different threads, you pass from one to the other with remarkable fluidity and agility.
A dizzying mise en abyme
Very well written, Do of proposes different mirrors and plays with the principle of mise en abyme. If Simon is tense and exhausted it is because he sees the terrible similarities between the story of the film he is shooting, that of economic violence against workers, and the story of his own filming, where he is forced to mistreat his crew and therefore to social conflict .
Is Simon Cédric Kahn tired after starting directing in 1991? Probably a little. But Cédric Kahn is also Joseph, this young man obsessed with cinema and willing to do anything, even mistakes, to get there. Jonathan Cohen, comedy star and very popular personality, is here trying to show off his great qualities in another register, like your character Alain? How many problematic interlocutors Souheila Yacoub had to deal with his young careerlike your character Nadia?
Thus, with almost seemingly nothing, Cédric Kahn manages to do it Do of a brilliant x-raywithout downtime, fun and intelligent French cinema, focused exclusively on shooting and its risks – his film starts on the first day of shooting and stops on the last – and on formidable characters played by very talented actors.
Do of by Cédric Kahn, in theaters from January 10, 2024. Above is the trailer. Find all our trailers here.
Source: Cine Serie
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