“Uneasy women we can’t help but worship.” So Sandrine Kiberlain, in an interview for Vanity Fair, described Nelly of Catherine Deneuve in Le sauvage, or Pauline of Isabelle Adjani in Tout feu tout flamme, inspiration for the character of Claire in Le parfum vert. The actress and director seems to have made the same mantra her saving mission. After the passage of L’accident de piano to the 20th edition of the Film Festival in Rome, yesterday it is arrived in Italian theatres The divine of France. Sarah Bernhardt of Guillaume Nicloux, his most recent interpretation in the role of the French Diva, yet another targeted choice, and another bastion of independence.
At the bottom of parallelism there are. Kiberlain is a legend of contemporary cinema in France, but has undoubtedly less emphasis abroad. And, above all, they share a life in the name of freedom from social constraints, unsecure of their respective, but antiquate étiquettes: “Many times I have accepted roles despite all of them recommending me to let it go. I’m trying to let myself go, not to think about the consequences, what others will say. I instinctively chose not to follow the trail, I prefer to surprise and surprise me. ”
His father was the author of theatre, his grandfather musician and his grandmother actress. His clear and sincere expressiveness, but at the same time sparkling and distrustful never betrayed her: in her you can feel the will to exalt the acting art, to raise it as undisputed protagonist of creative effort, both in front and behind the room. But in that passion there is a wicked need, characterizing: “As a child, I didn’t know who I was. The desire to pretend to be someone else comes from there, to feel indefinite. I could fill that void, make up for the fact that I feel somehow transparent.” Also in this there is a flashing affinity with Sarah Bernhardt, who interpreted her characters with dullness, but above all with deep respect for the life and feel of each of them.
So it is with this need that the actress moves the first steps. After graduating from the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, he won the first César nomination for a small role in Les Patrios of Éric Rochant. Thanks to this she has the opportunity to approach the young author Laetitia Masson, with whom she starts an artistic liaison (À vendre, Love Me) and who offers her the first starring role in En avoir (ou pas) in 1995. Turned by adopting a glacial style, directed, and written with as much naturalness, the film is a launch ramp for the schietta presence, without frills of Kiberlain, which is worth her first career César. Growing both as an interpreter and as a person, a more personal trajectory appears evident, sometimes political in his career.
In recent years, what will become a long contact with its Jewish roots, through the role of Yvette, the daughter of a Resistance leader in Un héros très discret by Jacques Audiard. He quickly became one of the main faces of the French comedy thanks to the roles in Benoît Jacquot’s Le septième ciel (with his partner Vincent Lindon), Tout va bien, on s’en va di Claude Mouriéras (in which he is the daughter of Michel Piccoli) and Après vous by Pierre Salvadori. His choices are increasingly targeted, until he arrives at Mademoiselle Chambon in Stéphane Brizé in 2009, the consecration: a mature role, made of small gestures – a look, an ironic smile, a eager look – to communicate the torment with usual grace and sincerity. In 2013 he won his second César for 9 mois ferme and in 2014 he entered, perhaps too late, in the universe of Alain Resnais, perhaps never so dizzy filmically and so ingeniously theatrical, in his latest film Aimer, boire et chanter.
In 2021, with his feature film director debut A jeune fille here goes bien, we find the different souls of Kiberlain, finally in cohesive dialogue. The context is France occupied during the Second World War: undoubtedly, it is the story of Irène, an aspiring actress to do, even here, sparkling and irreverent, that must confront with both emotional and working difficulties. But it is also a free stage for the protagonist (played by Rebecca Marder, here not dissimilar for vitality to the other extraordinary Iréne of French cinema) and young colleagues, an actors workshop that exudes love for artistic creation, for the identification, an escape-sign from an uncontrollable reality, to which perhaps only Casshais had arrived with such solemnity. It is the crowning of a silent, personal journey, but in fact overwhelming within the interpretative art, full of lightness that has always distinguished its performance. In the film there is also the atavica passion of Kiberlain, the theatre, and the connection with Marivaux (which probably dates back to the time of False Servant of Jacquot, at the beginning of the new millennium).
As Kiberlain himself states, the film is not autobiographical: “Even if it’s not a film about my family, I’m a little inspired by the stories of one of my grandmothers.” Yet, he continues, “as writing always means talking about himself, I naturally came to imagine that Irene, the protagonist, has the passion of theatre and recitation.” It is behind the room, therefore, that the actress offers us the broadest views on her person, perhaps because she must not account for the transparency with which she seems to have had a debt always, cross and delight. If it is not an autobiographical film, it is at least a due letter of love to itself. A few years later, Sarah Bernhardt has all the conditions to be her chance to impose herself, though with elegance and touch, and together to go back to exploring her roots. Is there a more attractive way for the sensitive, transparent, impavida Kiberlain, if not the direct comparison with the monstre sacré of French cinema?
L’articolo Sandrine Kiberlain, the exaltation of transparency proviene da SentieriSelvaggi.
