On the occasion of the release of “Animal Kingdom”, here are five things to know about this fantastic film starring Romain Duris, Paul Kircher and Adèle Exarchopoulos.
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What is it about ? In a world plagued by a wave of mutations which are gradually transforming certain humans into animals, François does everything to save his wife, affected by this mysterious phenomenon. As the region becomes populated with creatures of a new kind, he takes Émile, their 16-year-old son, on a quest that will forever change their lives.
Filming in New Aquitaine
Director Thomas Cailley filmed the majority of Animal Kingdom in the Landes de Gascogne regional natural park. To find his settings, he used old maps, tree enthusiast blogs and satellite images. He remembers : “We covered the region extensively with my brother David Cailley, the film’s cinematographer, until finding the ideal setting. Everything was there: the primary forest, the lagoon, a tree leaning over the water necessary for the story…”
“But right in the middle of filming during the summer of 2022, everything was destroyed because of the terrible fires in Gironde. The film was forced to stop, the team left, I stayed on site in the rain ashes to look for alternative settings to complete the film. We still had 5 weeks of work left… Entirely in the forest.”
The Animal Kingdom: how to create mutants larger than life? Meeting with the special effects team
The possibilities of the fantastic
With The Animal Kingdom, Thomas Cailley makes his second feature film after the highly acclaimed Les Combattants (2014), which began with a realistic tone and gradually slid towards the fantastical. The filmmaker confides: “This journey was not planned, I discovered it while making the film. But the possibilities of fantasy excited me. While participating in a jury at Fémis, I read a script written by Pauline Munierin which it was a question of hybridization between Man and Animal…”
“I had the feeling that this metaphor was at the crossroads of all the subjects that I wanted to address then: transmission, the worlds that we wish to bequeath, those that we inherit, that we destroy, or that “perhaps it still remains to be invented. The Animal Kingdom follows the relationship between a 16-year-old young man and his father, at a time when, almost everywhere in the world, the ‘animal part’ of humans is awakening , like a sleeping gene, disturbing the invisible boundary between Humanity and ‘Nature’.”
2023 NORTH-WEST FILMS – STUDIOCANAL – FRANCE 2 CINÉMA – ARTÉMIS PRODUCTIONS Paul Kircher and Romain Duris
The choice Romain Duris
Director Thomas Cailley explains that he discovered a good part of French cinema with Romain Duris: “The Young Peril And Gadjo dilo are among the French films that mattered when I was a teenager. He is also a fascinating actor, who gives this role of father a very strong incarnation. And always this light, this radiance and this contagious, inspiring pleasure of playing.”
“His capacity for work and listening is impressive, his understanding of the issues, his emotions are very instinctive. François is a whole character, he has something absolute, romantic. It is also a physical role. Qualities which are also those of Romain. François acts constantly, never gives up. Romain gave him speed, precision, a very pure physicality.”
Transformation into a birdman
Tom Mercier (recently seen in The Beast in the Jungle) plays a birdman whose mutation stage is very advanced. To give it shape, Thomas Cailley and his special effects team had to completely mold and scan its body, then build articulated prosthetic wings. The director adds: “Giving him new skin, pigmented like a bird, partially feathered. In addition to the 6 hours a day of makeup, Tom put himself through physical work on jumping and stretching while sculpting a truly impressive dancer’s body. “
“Fortunately, I also felt early on the set that we were reconnecting with this primary element of acting work, something that goes back to the origins of the pleasure of acting, to childhood: dressing up, playing at being something other than human, inventing your own animal, running, jumping, screaming, flying. The filming also had this playful and cathartic dimension.”
“Huge ambition. Huge result”: rated 4.4 out of 5, The Animal Kingdom is a “stunning masterpiece”
Prestigious references
Thomas Cailley conceived this film as its precedent : at the height of the characters. The tone and genre adapt to their quest, which is by turns physical, sensory or existential. The director explains: “For me, the coexistence of drama and comedy, of action and contemplation, of intimacy and the spectacular make the film more unexpected and lively. This mixture of genres is the basis of my desire for cinema .”
“If we talk about references, I thought as much about A perfect world of Clint Eastwood Or At the end of the race of Sydney Lumet than to Thelma and Louise of Ridley Scott or to The Host of Bong-Joon Ho. These are porous films, built around their characters, which favor emotion and go beyond the constraints of the genre (the escape, the thriller) to offer a total spectacle.