With fanfarethe great surprise
Most often, comedies feel good proceed in broad terms, a caricature of feelings with crude but benevolent features enough for the recipe to work. With fanfare they could have been part of this common type of production. But Emmanuel Courcol’s new film is superior in every way. Its selection at the Cannes Film Festival in the Cannes Premières section was therefore a recognition of its beautiful writing and the inspired performance of its casting, a recognition with which the audience immediately unanimously associated.
This story of two brothers who meet, now in their thirties, due to a terrible twist of fate and music, is truly a great success: funny, touching and above all surprising in its problem solving. Thibault (Benjamin Lavernhe), coming from the bourgeoisie, is an established and internationally recognized young conductor. Suffering from a serious illness, only an urgent bone marrow transplant can save him. By carrying out genetic research so that his sister could give him this gift, he discovered that he was actually adopted. And that he has a brother, Jimmy (Pierre Lottin), a school canteen employee and trombonist in the brass band of a northern town, adopted by another family when both were children.
Two brothers and two actors in harmony
Obviously everything is against them. Their ways, their social situation, their education, their comfort and ease in life. But they have one thing in common: music. Thanks to this common love and the gift of listening and playing it, they will help each other. Any other film would have simply made the social elevator work, with the two brothers helping each other: Jimmy saves Thibault by donating bone marrow, Thibault saves Jimmy from his precarious condition. But does Jimmy want to be removed from his condition? Can Thibault be saved?
With fanfare delights and finds an emotion that its finesse makes rare. It’s a tightrope that the film constantly walks, between pure comedy and pure drama, and the joys and sorrows of that movie friend they are embraced with the same intelligence, the same pride and great humanity. A humanity that is largely due to the pair of protagonists, played by the formidable Pierre Lottin and Benjamin Lavernhe. We met them so they could tell us about their soundtrack and this high-flying comedy.
What makes, on paper, With fanfare it has all the comedy feel good with clichés and big hooves, look and review, but in the end is it something completely different?
Pierre Lottin : Because it was made with the right recipe. In French cinema, especially in comedies, we like to do big shots, and here we had to do just the opposite.
Benjamin Lavernhe : But the recipe is not so easy to find. It’s on the wire. I think there’s a lot of sincerity in the fact that Emmanuel made the film he wanted. He didn’t try to make a film to please as many people as possible, a formatted film. With fanfare he is modest, sensitive, intelligent in his writing, with a lot of truth…
Pierre Lottin : And it’s not about the North! It’s a story that takes place in the North. It may seem strange to say this, but it’s a real nuance. Because it is a story that could have happened elsewhere, proving that there are no clichés.
Benjamin Lavernhe : I think, just the twists, the story, the intrigue, the moment we say to ourselves “ah this will be easy, we know what to expect”, it’s not easy for the characters. There are disappointments, as in life.
It’s complex, nothing is Manichean and above all we surprise ourselves. We are always captivated by the dramaturgy, the film constantly goes elsewhere from where we expect it. This is what people tell us: “Thank you, it’s rare, it’s nice”, because there are failures, many, but not even serious failures.
Your characters are well written, with Thibault bringing with him a rather solitary tragedy, while Jimmy’s tragedy has more collective contours.
Pierre Lottin : It happens pretty quickly when you understand the role, when you know where the character comes from. We know his origins, and therefore the problems that this brings around him. And things happen on set that we’re not prepared for. you have to be constantly attentive to your character, have your channels open to feed yourself details.
Pierre, you are a musician too. In a movie like With fanfaredo we let the musician take precedence over the actor?
Unfortunately not, the actor takes over. Since my character doesn’t have 30 years of piano, I play a little less well… Which is frustrating, because when I have to play a musician, generally the character doesn’t have that… So, as I play quite well, it’s annoying (laughs).
This is your first time with Benjamin Lavernhe, how did your collaboration go?
Pierre Lottin : We actually don’t have the same curriculum. Well he did theatre, so people think, even if he has always also done cinema. And I did The Tucchi. This is what people think too. But we have the same references, especially this thing cartoonwe come from there. What made us vibrate when we started came from cartoon network.
We have Jim Carrey in common, which means he can go anywhere, I can go nowhere, we don’t care, we understand each other. We have this thing about kids who can create cartoonish characters, Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman True romanceIn Sid and Nancy…This most beautiful thing in life. We understood each other immediately, we didn’t need to tell each other about our lives.
Is it when there is a connection like this that there is a risk of overdoing it, of losing track?
Pierre Lottin : We know not to exaggerate. It’s a bit forbidden to do too much, so we limit ourselves. We tell ourselves we’ll save that for another film. But by limiting ourselves, we lose a little, it’s annoying. Maybe I’m less funny than before…
Source: Cine Serie
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