A camera glance from the sulking teenager, held by her boyfriend by the shoulder, and we understand that the young girl is not happy. Behind them, a stone wall in gray-green, like a screen to everything that is happening behind their backs, to everything that escapes them from adult life, in this small village where they grew up. Françoise (Laetitia Legrix) plays at being a couple, rests her head against Bertrand (Pascal Cervo), but she is elsewhere. “Yes, I am with you, where do you want me to be?”she told him in a slightly affected tone, thinking she was reassuring him.
It sounds strange, his sentence pierces us and in a single shot, More than yesterday, less than tomorrow (1998), the first feature film by the late Laurent Achard, who died on March 25 at the age of 59, sets up a painful enigma. Scene after scene, in an economy of words, the filmmaker works to stir the embers after the decomposition of tensions and simmering hatreds. Which will soon flare up.
The fire is smoldering, and it is Françoise’s little brother, Julien (Martin Mihelich), who scrutinizes it with the eyes of a child who grew up with a tight stomach, from hearing and feeling so many arguments and misfortunes. His way of taking it all in impresses us, and his few bursts of laughter with his sister, who thinks she’s Vanessa Paradis and sings at the top of her voice, seem to be the only breaths of air or rations of carefreeness that are granted to him.
Child skinned alive
This character of a raw child runs through the work of Laurent Achard – let us quote Fear, Little Hunter (2004), a fabulous short film in one sequence shot, or even The Last of the Madmen (2006): in the vein of Renoir, Eustache, Pialat, the ultra-sensitive filmmaker stages the devastation of his characters from a skillfully crafted almost nothing (splendid frames, economy of words), such as the contrite look of the alcoholic father (Daniel Isoppo) who feels pathetic, or his funny way of sneaking a cigarette to his son. The film holds back the tears in the net of its tight editing, concentrating on the impulses, the fights, then leaving the characters to deal with their emotions off-screen.
In More than yesterday, and less than tomorrowit’s Sunday and it’s a celebration: it could be an enchanted interlude, like in those anxious families where children wait for birthdays and other celebrations to experience a semblance of harmonious life. Maurice, the family’s uncle, a widower and owner of a local cannery, is inaugurating his new premises – his sister is none other than Françoise and Julien’s mother. He is also preparing to announce his marriage to his secretary. News that his son, Bertrand (the lover in the foreground), has a hard time swallowing.
You have 35.88% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.