‘She’s not a predator’: Catherine Breillat defends the heroine of ‘Last Summer’, the shocking film from Cannes 2023

Catherine Breillat came to the finish line in front of the winners to redistribute the cards with Last summeris without a doubt the most controversial film since its 76th release. In this remake of a Danish feature film DronningenLea Drucker plays Anna, a married woman who has an incestuous affair with Theo, her 17-year-old stepson. The fact that she is a lawyer specializing in violence against minors makes the situation all the more worrying. Producer Said Ben Said proposed the project to the director ten years after her last film and the brain hemorrhage that left her partially disabled.

“I order what I wantCatherine Breillat immediately warned at a press conference this Friday.I twist them, I twist them, I return them to myself. The original film had the perfect screenplay, the lie scene.“, she adds about the pivotal episode where the wife denies the facts to her husband.”I thought it was so beautiful that I wanted to use it. Then there was a teenager, and as you know, adolescence is my passion.“, – recalled the director, who began her career in 1976 with real girl.

“The change from the original is Anna’s character. She’s no longer a predator“, the 74-year-old filmmaker took care to clarify, uttering a word we hear a lot here in Cannes about her character.”When Anne and Theo fall in love, they are completely unaware of it at first.she pleaded.There is some happiness, some excitement in being together. They do not analyze what will happen at all. That’s why she’s not really a predator. it’s a different matter.”

As this woman whose desire has nothing to do with any form of morality, Leah Drucker delivers one of the most striking performances of her career. “It was an immersion in the world of Catherine, about whom I have seen many films.“, – admitted the 51-year-old actress.It’s an immersion, I knew I had to take it, discovering things at the moment on set. In preparation, I tried to find a clue to identify with my character. And without judging her and not judging, of course. Then I reserved the opportunity to be inspired by the actors I played with. But also Catherine, her personality, her view of the world, which is unique. I let myself be transported.”

For his first major film role, 18-year-old Samuel Kircher embodies Theo’s subtle blend of darkness and naivety. “Reading the script, I was very moved by this character, who was never taken into account by his parents or anyone else.“, said the young man.Suddenly, a hand reaches out to her. For the first time, he is seen not as a child who is taken by the hand, but as an adult. That’s all that’s mind-boggling: for the first time, there’s someone he gets the impression he thinks. And suddenly that hand is pulled back with all the drama that can cause.”

Before the press, the trio talked about filming sex scenes, about disturbing realism. “It was very choreographed, almost choreographed. At first I was a little nervous, but Ekaterina calmed me down, she called me before and after“, explained Samuel Kircher.I think I was as nervous as he was even though I’m not the same age“, recognized Lea Drucker.”These scenes were not forced upon us with an artistic vagueness that we had no control over. We were confident in the cinematography of those scenes. And inside, it gave us a lot of freedom to evoke emotions that we couldn’t anticipate before..”

“In the past, when people hated my films, they accused me of being a feminist, and that was disgusting.“, – Catherine Breya recalled for her part.Feminist, me. But first and foremost, I’m a filmmaker. I like to look closely at things and see that doxas, a priori, suddenly collapse. (…) To know yourself, you must know yourself. We only see love scenes in porn films, otherwise the filmmakers elude them. I don’t want to elude them. I want to show them like they’ve never been shown before. That is, in absolute closeness, when, finally, one appears to himself, and the other to the other..”

>> Last summer Catherine Breya. Lea Drucker, Samuel Kirscher, Olivier Rabourdin. 1h45. In theaters September 23