Sophie Fillières' seventh and final film, Ma vie ma gueule, opens the 2024 Quinzaine des Cinéastes. Ma vie ma gueule, to be released in cinemas on September 18, 2024, stars Agnès Jaoui in the lead role , as a moving on-screen counterpart to the French director who died last summer. It's hard not to see her double in this touching self-portrait, in the guise of Barberie Bichette (Agnès Jaoui, that is), who, much to her chagrin, goes by Barbie.
Maybe she was beautiful, maybe she was loved, maybe she was a good mother to her children, a reliable colleague, a great lover, yes maybe. Today, it's black, it's violent, it's absurd and it terrifies her: she's 55 (so much for 60 and soon more!). It was inevitable, but how do you deal with yourself, with death, with life in short? A fifty-something who's a bit of a loser, but ultimately so commonplace. So commonplace, too, this everyday life punctuated by short poems penned on a corner of a paper tablecloth and appointments with the shrink to explain her failures.
On the verge of a crisis of everything (her loneliness, her hard-to-accept divorce, her children who are so hard on her, her inconsistent work, her invasive tocs), the urge to throw it all away (" How many more fucking showers before I die?" she wonders, "I've got to get my taste for life back.") filmed with infinite empathy, a sincere absurdity that stems from assumed lengths, and a real sense of dialogue that's both funny and bittersweet.
Carried from start to finish by theimmense Agnès Jaoui, the film also boasts some invigorating supporting roles: Valérie Donzelli, Laurent Capelluto and Philippe Katerine, who is just passing through, but serves as a trigger for Barbie's realization. In three clear-cut acts - a comedy "pif", a tragedy "paf", an epiphany "youkou" - Sophie Fillières delivers a final film imbued with freedom and self-knowledge.
A freedom that she herself maintained to the end of her life, asking her children, Agathe and Adam Bonitzer, to supervise the editing and post-production of Ma vie ma gueule . This they did, supported by the filmmaker's closest collaborators.
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Cinema: which film to see today, this Thursday September 19, 2024?
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