Mystification or history of the portraits

French film of Sandrine Rinaldi according to Denis Diderot (2005)

Synopsis

Richard (a speech therapist) has just met Emilie, an young girl of good family. Thinking of marrying it, he would like to make disappear the traces from his old love life. He asks his friend Raphael to find a stratagem to recover near Miss Dornet (her former partner) of the photographs which she kept to remember their love it. Raphael thus sends certain Desbrosses at Mrs. Therbouche, the friend who collected sick Miss Dornet since her rupture with Richard. Desbrosses is made pass for a Turkish doctor near Miss Dornet and shows to him that it must get rid of all the objects related to her old love if it wants to cure her depression.

“That a ring, that a portrait, that a letter, that a tender ticket that one had received has suddenly fallen us under the eyes, and here is the perfidious show which sticks to our retina. ”

Data sheet

Realizer: Sandrine Rinaldi
Adaptation and dialogs: Sandrine Rinaldi under the pseudo Camille Nevers according to Denis Diderot
Lasted: 59mn
Format: 35mm
Music: “Savages” of Jean-Philippe Branch interpreted with the piano by Marcelle Meyer

Distribution

Camille Cayol : Miss Dormet
Lucia Sanchez: Mrs. Therbouche
Laurent the Senior: Desbrosses
Valerie Donzelli: Emilie
Laurent Lacotte: Raphael
Serge Bozon: Richard

Comment

Sandrine Rinaldi made a success of a very beautiful film. And it is its first film. She transposed in Paris of today, a dialog of Denis Diderot: Mystification. To adapt it to the cinema she wrote a prolog: first scenes where Richard convenes his friend Raphael with his cabinet of speech therapist to expose his problem to him. She also rewrote the end.

All seems nevertheless to be written in a language of XVIIIe. The choice to make speak about the characters about today in the language of Diderot creates the same shift as Marcelle Meyer playing Jean-Philippe Rameau with the piano (one generally plays it harpsichord). The climate of this strange language contributes to give to film a strange climate. The odd images of a shifted world are added to it: a dog with the strange behavior, the passage of a suburban train scrambling the dialog of the protagonists, etc

Sandrine Rinaldi extremely well chose the actress who plays the part of Mrs. Therbouche: Lucia Sanchez. This one made chatoyer and to rebound Diderot with its Spanish accent. And its smile narquois vis-a-vis the naivety of Miss Dormet, fact of the wonders. It is necessary to see the head of Lucia Sanchez in this dialog: “ Desbrosses: I am Turkish. Miss Dormet: You are thus circoncis? Desbrosses: Very circoncis. Miss Dormet (with Mrs. Therbouche): That must be singular a man circoncis. Mrs. Therbouche: And to speak to him about that?! .” François Ozon had made the choice of Lucia Sanchez to make her first films. It made then a noticed career. Sandrine Rinaldi made the same choice that François Ozon, one can wish that be to him, with it also, a pledge of success.

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