Marion Cotillard makes a dazzling return to the red carpet at Cannes, delivering an astonishingly precise portrayal of a woman who tragically took her own life without any discernible explanation. “Little Girl Blue,” a film inspired by a true story, captivates audiences on the grand stage of the Cannes Film Festival.
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Marion Cotillard masterfully embodies the author Carole Achache, at the behest of her daughter, Mona Achache, who portrays herself in the fim. “Little Girl Blue” tackles transgenerational traumas, narrating the story of Carole Achache, who committed suicide in 2016. In an attempt to unravel the mistery behind her mother’s act, Mona embarks on a poignant journey through the labyrinth of the past.
The story “resonates with many feminine journeys in my family, with many women in general,” Cotillard reveals.
As a chameleon-like actress, Cotillard seamlessly transforms on the big screen, fully immersing herself in Carole Achache’s persona, from head to toe. The actress envelopes herself in the author’s fragrance, repeatedly echoing her texts and interviews throughout the film until their voices merge into one. She candidly admits, “I have never done anything so difficult in my life.”
“I love transformation. I find it easier to portray characters that are distant from me. (…) It’s there that I discover the most about humanity,” she goes on to say.
The film blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality, as Achache herself starts to confuse the two characters. Cotillard’s inherent humanity shines through her performance and deeply resonates with the audience. For the director, Mona, the choice of Cotillard was to bring a sense of “light” to the shadowy experiences of her mother. The film takes a nostalgic plunge into Carole’s intellectual world, as well as that of her writer parents. The feature goes beyond a simple story, as it ponders the transmission of pains and their causes that gradually reveal themselves throughout the film.
Although Mona, the director and actress, states that “women are cursed in my family,” her film rejects the concept of a curse.
For her part, Cotillard goes so far as to assert that healing requires facing things directly.
“I believe that, for complete healing, there will be a need to bring together the man and the woman, and the man should be in this battle too,” she says. The journey towards healing becomes a mutual step-by-step endeavor where individuals face one another, challenge the unspoken and ultimately heal.
Photo Credit : Patricia De Melo Moreira / AFP.
With AFP
