On the occasion of the release of “Last Summer” by Catherine Breillat, here are five things to know about this forbidden romance with Léa Drucker and Samuel Kircher.
What is it about ? Anne, a renowned lawyer, lives in harmony with her husband Pierre and their 6 and 7 year old daughters. One day, Théo, 17 years old, Pierre’s son from a previous marriage, moves in with them. Shortly after, he announces to his father that he is having an affair with Anne. She denies it.
Why Léa Drucker?
It was the producer Saïd Ben Saïd who suggested that Catherine Breillat choose Léa Drucker to play Anne. The director confides: “A priori, she is not an actress for me… But when I met her, I found her wonderful. Above all, I saw her as I did, I would film her, not as she had already was filmed.”
“All of a sudden, she became my actress, right there at home, just looking into her eyes, talking to me about the script, about her desire to make the film, about the trust she had in me, while I “I still have a frightening reputation, which is not me, but which I have. Léa has a side that is both Bergmanian and Hitchcockian.”
Note that, when the project was in its early stages, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi was mentioned to play the role of Anne.
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Birth of the project
Last Summer is the remake of the Danish film Queen of Hearts. The project was initiated by Saïd Ben Saïd who sent a note to Catherine Breillat reminding her that they had met at the Belfort festival, that he had just bought the rights to a remake of a Danish film and that he thought the filmmaker would do better than the original! The latter remembers: “At that time, I was at rock bottom. I no longer wanted to make films.”
“I think I was also in latent depression, I’m still in very poor physical condition. Being hemiplegic is not easy. I watched the film and I was stunned by this lie in it. told. To tell such a big lie and manage to make others believe it, you still have to be in a form of truth to achieve it! I thought it was an absolutely brilliant plot device, worthy of Shakespeare.”
Alamode Film Samuel Kircher and Léa Drucker
A young talent to follow
Originally, Catherine Breillat proposed the character of Théo to Paul Kircher (the revelation of the High School student directed by Christophe Honoré). But the filming of the film, which was to take place in 2021, was postponed until the following year for financing reasons. Paul being no longer available, it was he who suggested to the director and producer Saïd Ben Saïd to choose his brother, Samuel Kircher.
Catherine Breillat then fell under his spell: “Absolute grace. Samuel is an absolutely graceful, luminous being and at the same time totally mysterious, opaque. He is abandoned to the camera, he does not fear it, He lets himself be devoured by it without a muscle twitching. Samuel has an incredible way of smiling. There aren’t many men who smile on screen.”
“I transgressed something of myself to go towards this woman”: we tell you everything about Last Summer, the incestuous and scandalous romance of Cannes 2023
Not a sulfurous film!
If, on paper, it was originally a story of adultery with a stepson who was much too young, that’s not really what Catherine Breillat wanted to tell: “I don’t like realistic cinema, when it is confined to saying conventional, narrow, moralistic things. Moralistic art makes people ugly and shrinks.”
“But Art is moral because it beautifies them, takes a look at them that blossoms them, transfigures them. Contrary to popular belief, I am hyper romantic! I am obsessed with purity, that’s why I can’t stand the adjective “sulphurous” about me. Nor can people say that I make erotic cinema. I hate eroticism!”
Last Summer by Catherine Breillat: this romance will disturb you but you shouldn’t miss it at the cinema!
In a bubble
Catherine Breillat chose to film Anne and Théo very closely, as if in a bubble from which the social environment had been expelled. She justifies this choice: “When two people look at each other with their eyes, and drink in each other’s words, they are alone in the world. There can be a deafening uproar, they no longer hear anything. I had shown Ivan the Terrible to Samuel, with these “sliding” looks.”
“In the film, I almost make Samuel squint as he looks at Léa out of the corner of his eye. I ended up realizing that I was a filmmaker of emotions. And the emotions are the naked faces, of which I tracks the slightest glance that slips away, that shines… I am a voyeur and a clairvoyant. I like to see the human soul in its slightest thrills, I find its ambiguity of absolute beauty.”