After the Cannes premiere, Michel Hazanavicius’s latest movie will meet the Bulgarian audience - this is a remarkable portrait of time and a key love affair in the biography of the legend of the French "New Wave" movement Jean-Luc Godard
After the extraordinary furor that Michel Hazanavicius sparked six years ago with "The Artist", five Academy Awards winner, three Golden Globe Awards, seven BAFTA awards, two awards from the Cannes International Contest, and another 130 prizes from various film forums all over the world, the director has once again looked at the cinema's past. The focus in his latest film "Redoubtable" is on the love story between Anne Wiazemsky and the legendary director Jean-Luc Godard. As a basis, Hazanavicius uses the autobiographical book of the actress - "Un An Après", descendant of the Russian princely line Wiazemsky. The role of Godard's beloved, with whom they also made together "La chinoise", "Weekend" and "Sympathy For The Devil", is entrusted to Stacey Martin. She is also well-known to the audience from Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac". The image of Godard is played by Louis Garrel, whom we remember from Bertolucci's "Dreamers" (and who also is the son of one of the artists of French New Wave movement - Philippe Garrel). Here's what the director shared during his film work:
"Two years ago, I read "Un An Après" by Anne Wiazemsky. In the book she tells about her love affair with Jean-Luc Godard in May 1968. I admire endlessly Godard and his work, and I have always been fascinated by this special period in our history, and immediately decided to adapt the book to a movie, I wanted to create a comedy. The title is "Le redoubtable" ... Louis Garrel took on the role of Godard and Stacey Martin is Wiazemsky - they are really great! I hope you like it too..."
Without documenting the rebellious French spirit in the middle of the last century, it is impossible to create a true portrait of one of the most distinct French artists, an integral part of the French New Wave movement, which changed the principles of creating a film story and re-educated the perceptions of the audience. "Redoubtable" looks like an interesting provocation and we are sure it will be an extremely valuable accent in the 22nd Sofia Film Fest program - a peculiar introduction to the special festivals’ selection dedicated to the turbulent year of 1968.
“Redoubtable" turns out to pretty much merit its title. It’s a dazzlingly executed, hugely enjoyable act of stylistic homage, but also the poignant story of a dysfunctional marriage and an insightful recreation of a critical and contradiction-ridden period of modern French history…" „Screen International”, Jonathan Romney
"The surprise of "Redoubtable", which turns out to be a lightly audacious and fascinating movie (if not exactly one to warm your heart), is that though it is, in fact, structured around Godard’s marriage to Wiazemsky, its real subject is his life as an artist — in particular, the way his relationship to filmmaking got turned on its head during the crucial period of late 1967 and ’68, when he was drawn into the national spasm of protest that was May 1968 and became obsessed with “revolution,” to the point that he shed the skin of the filmmaker he’d been in his glory days…” „Variety”, Owen Gleiberman