France is a French filmdirected by Serge Bozon and released in 2007 .
Synopsis
During the First World War , Camille, a young woman whose husband is fighting at the front, receives from him a brief letter of rupture. Shaken, she decides to join him, but, repressed by the rules of the time that prohibits women to move alone to the front, she has no other option than to disguise himself as a man to take the road on foot.
Themes and context
The work of Serge Bozon is allegorical and asks some questions to the audience: are we not looking for an ideal, prisoners of squaring the circle? And this circle in which we turn in circles, conditioned socially and sexually by laws (or commandments), would it not, as limits, those of the borders of a country, for example France, similar to those of our minds?We think of the work of the situationist Guy Debord In girum imus nocte and consumimur igni (We go around in the night and we are devoured by fire) . Camille becomes one of the brave little androgynous soldiers of the group (or swarm), able to eliminate those who could pose a threat to his survival. As soon as one tries to pierce the shell of one of its members (the attempted rape of Camille), the aggressor is immediately eliminated by the group. The group walks blindly towards its ideal (outside the circle) totally foreign to the laws since, in this case, it is called “desertion”. His song (the buzz of the swarm) is the opposite of the warrior hymns: it is the lament of a woman in search of love or the perpetuation of the species.
“France” remains a pure spirit, the group only moves through fields and forests and the only identifiers are the round helmets of the French , those dented Germans , a trench of hairy and a watchtower.
Paradoxically, this film while outside 2 risks to appear hermetic to those who would wait (in vain) any speech militant for the identity of a country like France: its goal is more to deliver body and minds of their chains …
[unpublished work?]
Technical sheet
Title: France
Director: Serge Bozon
Scenario: Axelle Ropert
Music: Fugu (Mehdi Zannad), Benjamin Esdraffo
Director of Photography: Céline Bozon
Sound: Laurent Gabiot, Pauline Gaillard, Maïkôl
Decorator: Brigitte Brassart
Costume designer: Renaud Legrand
Makeup artist / hairdresser: Michel Vautier
Assistant Director: Thomas Longuet
Editor: François Quiqueré
Country of origin: France
Production Companies: Les Films Pelléas ( France ) – National Center for Cinematography (CNC) – Île-de-France Regional Council – Image Center ( France ) – Sofica ( France ) – Cinemage ( France ) – Coficup / Backup Films ( France ) – Soficinéma 3 ( France )
Producer: David Thion
Production Manager: Hélène Bastide
Delegate Producers: Philippe Martin, David Thion
Distributors:
Shellac for France
International Pyramid for Abroad
Format: Color – 1.66: 1 – Dolby SR DTS Stereo – 35 mm
Genre: Drama , War Movie
Duration: about 98 minutes 1
Release dates:
, presented at the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival France
national release in France
national release in Belgium
Distribution
Sylvie Testud : Camille
Pascal Greggory : the lieutenant
Guillaume Verdier : the youngest
François Négret : Jacques
Laurent Talon : Antoine
Pierre Léon : Alfred
Benjamin Esdraffo : Pierre
Didier Brice : Jean
Laurent Lacotte : Frédéric
Bob Boisadan : the guitarist
Lionel Turchi : the violinist
Laurent Valero : the bandoneist
Michel Fossiez : the oboist
Jean-Christophe Bouvet : Elias
Emmanuel Lefauvre : the son of Elias
Cécile Reigher : Camille’s sister
Philippe Chemin : the liaison officer
Mehdi Zannad : the sentinel
Pascale Bodet : the daughter of the hill
With the participation of Guillaume Depardieu
Shooting
The film was shot in 38 days with a budget of 1.4 million euros 3 .
Around the film
Serge Bozon and the songs of film 4 :
“I had the impression that the songs would indeed increase a certain type of emotions and make the unity of the group more emotive. In a song, the notion of group exists immediately in a unitary way, they do not need to tell their life, to say that they are welded for a long time, etc., since they sing together: the induced music a fraternity of fact, “in action”. I also had the impression that the initial and later hidden romance track, since Camille can not talk to anyone about her husband, of her quest, was unexpectedly resurging songs, since they are songs of love and of the only feminine point of view. That is to say that they are love songs from the point of view of a woman who, every time, tell a love meeting with a foreign man in a foreign country. And it’s never the same soldier who sings. As if the soldiers all had hidden musical gifts and we could not anticipate how far the list of these gifts could go. “
Distinctions
2007 : Jean Vigo Award
2007 : Selection of Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival
Notes and references
↑ a and b Duration given on the DVD cover.
↑ Serge Bozon advance 99% of outdoor scenes.
↑ Didier Péron , ” A cinephilie a little shifted “, Release , ( read online [ archive ] ).
↑ Excerpt from her interview with Jean Douchet thein Paris for the National Association of Research Cinemas / CNC .
