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| Filippo Meneghetti: Deux / Two of Us (2019) with Martine Chevallier (Madeleine) and Barbara Sukowa (Nina). |
Yhdessä / Vi två.
FR/LU/BE © 2019 Paprika Films / Tarantula / Artémis Productions. P: Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin & Laurent Baujard.
D: Filippo Meneghetti. SC: Filippo Meneghetti & Malysone Bovorasmy – with additional writing by Florence Vignon. DP: Aurélien Marra – colour – 2.39:1 – release: 2K DCP. PD: Laurie Colson. Cost: Magdalena Labuz. M: original score: Michele Menini. S: Céline Bodson – 5.1. ED: Ronan Tronchot.
Production manager: Vincent Canart. 1st assistant director: Brice Morin. Casting: Brigitte Moidon, Valérie Pangrazzi.
Theme song: "Chariot (Sul mio carro)" (1963), originally French, called "Chariot" (1961, J. W. Stole = Franck Pourcel & Del Roma = Paul Mauriat) sung in Italian (with lyrics by Gaspare Gabriele Abbate & Bruno Pallesi) by Betty Curtis. (Globally well known is the American version "I Will Follow Him", adapted by Arthur Altman with new lyrics by Norman Gimbel, first recorded by Little Peggy March on her single "I Will Follow Him" / "Wind Up Doll" in 1963.)
C: Barbara Sukowa (Nina), Martine Chevallier de la Comédie-Française (Madeleine), Léa Drucker (Anne), Muriel Benazeraf (Muriel), Jérôme Varanfrain (Frédéric).
Loc: 28 Avenue Bouisson Bertrand, Montpellier (Madeleine and Nina's apartments). – Sommières, Gard (riverside scenes). – Thionville, Moselle (resting home).
95 min
Festival premiere: 7 Sep 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.
French premiere: 12 Feb 2020.
Finnish festival premiere: 8 May 2021 Season Film Festival.
Distributed in Finland by Cinema Mondo with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Outi Kainulainen / Joanna Erkkilä.
Corona security: max 10 capacity, face masks, distancing, hand hygiene.
Viewed at a press screening at Kino Engel 2, Helsinki, 4 May 2021.
Synopsis from the press kit: "Two retired women, Nina and Madeleine, have been secretly in love for decades. Everybody, including Madeleine’s family, thinks they are simply neighbors, sharing the top floor of their building. They come and go between their two apartments, enjoying the affection and pleasures of daily life together, until an unforeseen event turns their relationship upside down and leads Madeleine’s daughter to gradually unravel the truth about them."
AA: The story of a secret love comes as a shock to a family. A son and a daughter must face the realization that they have known nothing about their mother.
It starts in terms of a discreet arrangement. Madeleine has never revealed her new love to her children, although she has kept promising Nina to do so. The tension becomes so unbearable that she suffers a stroke, becomes paralyzed and loses her faculty to speak.
When Nina keeps trying to contact and communicate with Madeleine, her children Anne and Frédéric and her nurse Muriel mistake her for a stalker. They change the locks to her apartment and prevent Nina from meeting her at a resting home.
The behaviour of the children and Muriel is understandable from their viewpoint because the misunderstood Nina goes berserk and turns violent.
However, the children realize that the resting home is not a good idea, and the daughter Anne has a change of heart.
A basic theme is what Henrik Ibsen called livsløgn in The Wild Duck: a fundamental self-deception, an illusion, a life lie. It can be for an invidual what a foundation myth is for a nation if that myth is based on an illusion.
The children have known that their mother Madeleine has been unhappy but they have believed that their father was nevertheless the great love of her life. Breaking their illusion has become overwhelming for Madeleine.
When Madeleine loses her power of communication, only the look and the touch of Nina can start to revive her. We have read and heard about the healing power of music, and in this movie it is the couple's theme song, "Chariot (Sul mio carro)" sung by Betty Curtis, that helps Madeleine regain the power of her look.
Among other things, Deux offers a warning about medicalization. Strong drugs in the resting home certainly help the staff by reducing patients to zombies, easily manipulated, but for the patients and those dear to them they mean clear and present danger.
Subtly directed by Filippo Meneghetti in his debut feature film, the character-driven Deux boasts sophisticated performances by Barbara Sukowa and Martine Chevallier as the lovers, and Léa Drucker and Jérôme Varanfrain as Madeleine's children.
Among the films themes is also class and ethnical discrimination in the rude treatment of Muriel the Mahgreb nurse, interpreted by Muriel Benazeraf. The violent Nina becomes herself a victim of violence as a consequence of a chain of misunderstandings, all due to the livsløgn from which all have suffered.
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: THE LYRICS TO "CHARIOT (SUL MIO CARRO)":
SUL MIO CARRO
Italian lyrics by Gaspare Gabriele Abbate & Bruno Pallesi
Chariot, chariot
Se verrai con me
sul mio carro tra le nuvole
più avanti del caldo del sol
sull’ultima stella lassù
se verrai
Tu vivrai con me
in un’isola fantastica
e un mondo vedrai di lassù
un mondo nascosto nel blu
tutto nuovo per te
La terra, la terra, la terra
sarà senza frontiere
la terra, la terra
ci porterà fortuna
la luna, la luna
per noi sarà il domani
se m’ami, se m’ami
Se verrai con me
sul mio carro tra le nuvole
più avanti del caldo del sol
sull’ultima stella lassù
tu solo con me
io sola con te
La terra, la terra, la terra
sarà senza frontiere
la terra, la terra
ci porterà fortuna
la luna, la luna
per noi sarà il domani
se m’ami, se m’ami
Se verrai con me
sul mio carro tra le nuvole
più avanti del caldo del sol
sull’ultima stella lassù
tu solo con me
io sola con te
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