Asia Argento and Catherine Breillat on Une vieille maitresse
From Twitch comes the news that Asia Argento, as well as Louis Garrel and Jeanne Moreau are to star in Catherine Breillat’s next film, Une vieille maitresse.
50 years after Choderlos de Laclos, the Marquess of Flers, decides to marry is grand daughter, jewels of French aristocracy, to Ryno de Marigny, a sort of romantic Valmont.
But a thing remains hidden : this Don Juan, unrepentant, is the ten-year lover and the victim of a scandalous courtezan, daughter of a duchess and bullfighter.
The film is based on a book of the same name and, according to Breillat:
The novel gripped me immediately. Beyond the fanciful, romantic tone, there was a sense of raw emotional truth, an analysis of passion in all its irrationality and a delectation in its intoxicating dizziness that, instead of fleeing it, made you want to be swallowed up by it.
Barbey d’Aurévilly made no secret of the fact that the novel drew heavily on personal experience and that the character of Vellini was inspired by a singular, fatal liaison. Of the kind you don’t admit to and which is flaunted here with a sincere shamelessness that brought obloquy and scandal at the time.
Sincere shamelessness to which I also profess and which, over the century that separates us, seems twinned with, resonant of, that of Barbey d’Aurévilly.
Having never tasted until now any particular desire to make a literary adaptation, I like to think that if I had lived at the same time, I would have resembled Barbey d’Aurévilly. I identify with his novel. It gradually took possession of me like a second me, which might providentially provide the fanciful dimension that I don’t have and which is so necessary for what I aspire to: making sophisticated, popular movies.
Definately one to look out for in 2007.
Tuesday 28 Feb 2006 | Paul | New and Upcoming Films
