Friday September 24 in the evening at MK2 Bibliothèque, Parisian multiplex of the 13e district sharing the esplanade of the François-Mitterrand Library, the projection of Tralala opened the cycle of premieres offered as part of the Festival du Monde, the seventh edition of which took place from September 24 to 26. Shortly before 8 p.m., spectators rushed into the room, at the tip of the bevelled structure of the building, to see the latest feature film by the brothers Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu, who came to introduce the session with their interpreter Mathieu Amalric. Supporters of a rather singing cinema, regionally anchored in their native Hautes-Pyrénées, the authors presented the film as their first pure musical comedy, “Which we wanted it not to fall from the sky, but that the character goes towards her”, said Arnaud Larrieu. “I am speaking here on behalf of the troop: you will see, everyone sings! “ completed Mathieu Amalric by way of launch.
The actor plays the role of Tralala, a street singer to whom one evening, in the vicinity of the Montparnasse station, a young girl in a blue riding hood appears as if in a fairy tale whispering a very strange motto to him: “Don’t be yourself”. Neither one nor two, he left with his guitar and his amp under his arm for Lourdes, city of the Blessed Virgin and miracles, where he is convinced to find her. There, he sees himself embroiled in a family story that is not his: Lili (Josiane Balasko), owner of a closed hotel, takes him for her son Pat, who disappeared many years ago to pursue a career in the music. The troubadour accepts the role and discovers himself, in quick succession, the brother of Seb (Bertrand Belin), lover of Jeannie (Mélanie Thierry) and Barbara (Maïwenn), and many other things. The whole being obviously the occasion of multiple turns of song, borrowed or rewritten with the cream of the French song: Bertrand Belin, present in the casting of course, but also Philippe Katerine, Etienne Daho, Dominique A, Jeanne Cherhal and the duo of rappers Sein.
Wearing the mask
At the end of the screening, the film crew returned to the room to answer spectators’ questions for nearly an hour. The Larrieu brothers came back extensively on this feature film, the preparation of which was somewhat upset by the health crisis, and whose shooting in September 2020 slipped into the brief parenthesis between two periods of confinement. “We wanted to shoot the film in Lourdes as Jacques Demy had done in Rochefort with his Young ladies, explains Jean-Marie Larrieu. The irony is that the Covid had emptied the city of its pilgrims. So we had to make this musical in a period of science fiction, of which it necessarily keeps something! “
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