Clovis Cornillac returns to the cinema with the social comedy “Monsieur, le Maire”. He gives the answer to Eye Haïdara. See it today at the cinema.
A year after Colors of the Fire, Clovis Cornillac is back – only in front of the camera this time – with the dramatic comedy Monsieur, the mayor. The actor shares the bill with Eye Haïdara (Le Sens de la fête), Jean-Pierre Martins and Laurence Côte.
Written and directed by Karine Blanc and Michel Tavares, the feature film follows Paul Barras, the mayor of a small mountain village located at the foot of Mont-Blanc. The latter is fighting to maintain businesses and protect the school from an announced closure. While he is desperately looking for ways to attract new families, the arrival of single mothers in difficult situations, including Joe-Lynn, an outspoken singer and her two children, will quickly spark sparks in this peaceful village.
A subject already addressed this year in Mélanie Auffret’s feature film awarded at the Alpe d’Huez Comedy Film Festival, Les Petites Victoires with Julia Piaton and Michel Blanc.
The filmmaker duo’s first feature film, the idea for this film came from a desire to work together for cinema after having already collaborated for the theater and for a short film.
A film on desertification in rural areas.
Michael Tavares explains in the press kit: “When we think about a first film, we don’t always necessarily start with a subject. In any case, as far as we are concerned, we started more from a desire. That of speaking to the child we had been. We realized with Karine that our childhoods had many similarities: in rural areas, with big dreams, but very far from the world of cinema.
As luck would have it, the producer Yves Marmion, with whom Karine and I had already worked, came to offer us the opportunity to tell the daily life of a village mayor. It turns out that we had both already worked on the subject and that we had focused on the problem of the desertification of rural areas. During our research, we came across a story that touched us, that of the mayor of l’Hospitalet-près-l’Andorre who had revived his village by opening a shelter for women in difficulty.”
Claire Nicole Eye Haïdara, Clovis Cornillac
Karine Blanc and Michel Tavares therefore set out and found out about shelters for battered women but also about desertification in rural areas.
The director explains: “Paul (Clovis Cornillac) is the result of a lot of research work that Karine and I did on mayors of rural towns. We met some of them, we watched numerous documentaries, and we also read not bad testimonials.
A village mayor has nothing to do with that of a big city. Not being as supported, he must personally take charge of the individual and collective problems of his constituents: this ranges from their social and financial problems to the management of their marital or neighborhood quarrels, including road accidents. and even suicides. He is criminally liable, and he is responsible for fulfilling, in the name of the State, certain administrative and judicial functions.”
Karine Blanc adds: “We found quite a few anecdotes about mayors who, to reach the number of students giving them the right to keep their school, invent children who do not exist. We didn’t use them because some were surrealist and we wanted to stay true to life and realism. Above all, we observed that mayors are often very creative, and are full of suggestions to provide innovative solutions in order to improve the quality of life of their constituents. They are elected officials who lack neither energy nor ideas.”
Claire Nicole
Clovis Cornillac
Talk about “living together”, without giving a moral lesson.
In the feature film, Clovis Cornillac tries to breathe life into the village of Cordon, which is a real village located in the Alps 12 km from Megève. The latter, who has more than 70 films to his credit, really liked the script which deals with “living together”.
He underlines in the press kit: “JI found it rich and fascinating. Beyond the subtlety with which he combined the portrait of a mayor of a small town and that of a mother in difficulty, he reviewed all kinds of social problems, including that of the survival of isolated villages and that of battered women forced to leave the marital home.
We were in the middle of what we call proximity politics, a policy about which we don’t talk much, and about which, consequently, many people have an erroneous opinion. This scenario showed that it is possible to talk about “living together”, without it being at any time a pretext to provide, in passing, a moral lesson.“
Claire Nicole
Eye Haidara
And it’s the actress Eye Haidara, already seen in The Sense of Party, In Therapy or more recently Hawaii who plays the role of Joe-Lynn. She states: “Joe-Lynn is a positive character who goes through the toughest trials of women’s lives, but who maintains an unwavering solar energy. She is constantly moving forward and always believing that there is a solution, because she simply has no other choice. She is a woman who raises her children alone, but who does not suffer the weight of this solitude. She also demonstrates a collective conscience and cares about the fate of other women around her.”
The latter had to learn to dance and sing for the needs of the film. “We had a very short preparation time for a result that was intended to be ambitious. But that’s what’s most exciting about our job. So we got down to the basics in the singing and guitar lessons. For country dance classes, it was more complicated because you had to have the ease of a teacher. As an anecdote, I don’t know my right from my left, essential for teaching others to dance! We had to redouble our efforts until the day of filming.” she comments.
Mr. Mayor is currently in cinemas.