Copyright Marie-Camille Orlando – 2024 – CHI-FOU-MI PRODUCTIONS – TRESOR FILMS – FRANCE 3 CINEMA – COOL INDUSTRIE
Paul Kircher and Angelina Woreth, here in the film “Their Children After Them”.
CINEMA – 700,000 copies later, Their children after them is back. Not for a second volume in bookstores, but on the big screen. The bestseller of Nicolas Mathieu arrives at the cinema, this Wednesday, December 4, in an adaptation signed by the Boukherma brothers, filmmakers noted for their brilliant comedies teddy And The Year of the Shark.
Exit the humor. The twins from the South-West have remained faithful, here, to the romantic fresco, Goncourt Prize 2018. It is 1992 in Heillange, and Anthony (Paul Kircher), a young boy struck by boredom, falls under the immediate spell of the beautiful Stephanie (Angelina Woreth), during a hot summer afternoon hanging out by the lake.
Love at first sight does not seem mutual, but the young girl – from a good local family – invites him and his cousin to party that same evening. Great, but how to get there? After a minute of hesitation, the two teenagers got on their father’s motorbike. Size problem: it has disappeared when it’s time to go home in the early morning.
Check out the trailer below:
Anthony is screwed. If his father (Gilles Lellouche) finds out, he is dead. His mother (Ludivine Sagnier), worried about the beatings and potential repercussions against her and her son, tries to hide the affair. Too late. Coming home from work one evening, she saw a crowd in the neighborhood. The reason for this grouping? A motorcycle in flames. It’s the father’s. Quickly, we must flee.
What about “male gaze”?
Breathtaking, the film by the Boukherma brothers succeeds in adapting a dense book of more than 400 pages in 2 hours and 15 minutes. This strong point is also its weak point. Everything comes together, sometimes at the risk of running out of breaths. Also at the risk of neglecting certain characters, and in particular its heroines who serve the needs of the male protagonists rather than the storyline.
The focus, for example, on the bare parts of Stéphanie’s body in a swimsuit raises questions. The one on her butt, when she has sex with Anthony in the car, too. Should we see it as a form of “male gaze”? “ I find it unfair that we are being told about this », answers Ludovic Boukherma. To which his brother adds: “ When we look at a young girl through the eyes of a teenager who is in love with her – like in our film – it’s not “male gauze”. »
Stéphanie, Zoran Boukherma tells us, “ it’s a character that exists a lot in Anthony’s eyes because we tightened the story a lot “. She comes in and out of the film regularly. “ When she is no longer there, there is mystery around her person. We are in an era where social networks do not exist. Anthony can’t continue following her on Instagram », continues the 32-year-old filmmaker.
His brother defends the idea of having filmed all the bodies, including those of the boys. “ We imagined them as opposed to those of adults – more damaged by life and struck by realityLudovic Boukherma tells us. Their bodies express disillusionment. And those of the young, hope. »
Masculinity, according to the Boukherma brothers
A concept developed by British feminist director Laura Mulvey in the 1970s, “male gaze” refers to a way of sexualizing women on screen as objects. Shown as desirable in the eyes of men, they are dehumanized.
“ The male gaze is not a problem in itself » if it serves a purpose, believes Zoran Boukherma. “ What is problematiche adds, this is its predominance. Points of view should be more diverse. » This question, he tells us, the twins ask themselves « as men » before each film, aware that this necessarily influences their way of filming.
In their own way, they try to answer it, such as by addressing “ the place occupied by masculinity in (their) construction “. As an example, they mention the casting choice of the two heroes of the film, Paul Kircher and Sayyid El Alami. Far from the stereotypes of virility, the two men have neither the physique nor even necessarily the attitude of the Anthony and Hacine of the book.
“ We wanted these two boys to oppose each other in a violent way, but not to display this violence.Ludovic Boukherma tells us. As if in their environment, it was through violence that they had to assert themselves. They only reproduce the violence of their fathers. A social violence that they themselves suffer. » A determinism, also a reflection of a patriarchal unconscious. Like the “male gaze”?
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