Maestro (2014)
Directed by Léa Fazer

Film Review

The experience of working with Eric Rohmer on what would be the director's last film - Les Amours d'Astrée et de Céladon - in the summer of 2006 had such an impact on the actor Jocelyn Quirvin that he was soon after prompted to make a film showing how the encounter had changed him.  The 30-year-old actor had got as far as writing a screenplay for a film entitled Maestro, with input from his close friend Léa Fazer, when he was killed in a car accident.  This was November 2009, just two months before Rohmer himself died.  Fazer felt she owed it to Quirvin to ensure that his film saw the light of day and after a long hard struggle she finally managed to find a producer willing to finance the project.  The film that Fazer ended up making is more than just an affectionate tribute to an actor tragically taken before his time, it is also a deeply felt homage to the auteur film and a thoughtful reflection on how high culture must be passed between generations if it is to survive.

The part of the main character Henri, which was to have been played by Quirvin himself, was taken up by Pio Marmaï, a talented and highly versatile performer first revealed in Rémi Bezançon's Le Premier Jour du reste de ta vie (2008).  Marmaï not only bears a more than passing resemblance to Quirvin, he also has the look of an ambitious young actor who fancies himself as the next big thing in commercial French cinema whilst, at the same time, convincing us that he has the potential to become something far worthier.  Marmaï's Henri is the proverbial fish-out-of-water when he enters the Rohmer-like-world of a dedicated auteur filmmaker, resulting in some predictable culture clash comedy with Henri as ill at ease with his pretty lilac dress as he is with his suspicion that he is probably the only heterosexual male on the set.  Helped by a witty and insightful script, Marmaï shows himself to be an actor of far greater subtlety and range than he was (at the time) credited for - his character's cultural development from wannabe ignoramus to ardent Ronsard enthusiast is convincingly handled and genuinely moving.  This was an inspired piece of casting.

And so was the casting of the Maestro himself, Michael Lonsdale.  In a career that extends as far back as the mid-1950s, the perfectly bilingual Lonsdale has shuttled back and forth between francophone and anglophone cinema, appearing in over two hundred films that range from micro-budget auteur pieces that virtually no one has seen to big budget Hollywood spectaculars that almost everyone has seen.  He even played a Bond villain (the maddest of the lot, in Moonraker).  Although Lonsdale never came close to working with Rohmer, he did have a close encounter with two of his Nouvelle Vague contemporaries - François Truffaut (Baiser's volés) and Jacques Rivette (Out 1) - and it is the latter director we glimpse most readily in Lonsdale's canny imitation of the quintessential auteur, the kind whose grip on arcane 17th century poetry is far stronger than that which he has on the modern world.
 
At first sight, Lonsdale's portrayal risks being a naughty caricature of the artist as a senile old man, but it soon develops into something deeper and more complex as he engages with the younger characters and draws them into his refined world.  The purity of the auteur's art, indeed his whole philosophy of life, is reflected in the film's lush visuals, which are saturated with the unspoiled natural beauty of the stunning location.  With his desiccated hippy appearance and habit of drifting off into poetic reveries, Lonsdale's veteran filmmaker is an easy figure of fun, but he enchants us (as Rohmer did) with his chaste vision of cinema and striving for truth through poetry and observation.  It is interesting to watch how the aged director Rovère/Rohmer interacts with his fresh-faced actors - as the latter acquire a greater cultural awareness which makes them better actors and better people, the former appears revitalised.  It is a perfect example of artistic symbiosis, an old man's art renewed by the blood of the next generation who will, in the process, learn to carry on and sustain the cultural tradition.

The intimate scenes with Lonsdale and Marmaï provide the heart and soul of the film and have strong echoes of those in the original Star Wars films in which the ancient Jedi master Yoda passes on his knowledge and experience to Luke Skywalker.  Henri learns not only to respect Rovère but also to acquire his love of verse and an understanding of the value of personal integrity.   Henri's attempts to explain to his mentor the phrase 'Ta meuf, je la kiffe gros' (a snatch of Verlan vulgarity he previously lobbed at his master, its intended target being a delectable Deborah François) is as funny as it is touching, and it shows the beginning of a transformation that has the potential to make Henri a truly remarkable actor.

One of the charms of Léa Fazer's cinema is its delicate understatement and this is what makes Maestro, one of her most impressive films to date, such a wonderfully authentic and involving piece.  Admittedly, the understatement is taken a little too far as regards the hesitant romance between the ill-matched characters played by Marmaï and Deborah François (intended to depict the start of the love affair between Quirvin and his future real-life partner Alice Taglioni) - this never develops to the point of being more than just vaguely credible.  But in the more subtle and convincing relationship between Henri and his mentor Fazer's self-restraint pays dividends.

Even though they are separated in age by almost sixty years, the two men develop an incredibly close rapport in a very short space of time and you feel something tangible passing between them as they try to communicate across the generational divide - an intense love of poetry and classic drama that will enrich the life of the younger man and guide him towards a more fulfilling career than the one he had originally set his sights on.  Maestro is a film that more than does justice to the memories of Eric Rohmer and Jocelyn Quirvin, although its real value is in reminding us of the need for artists at both ends of the age spectrum to work together if France's noble tradition of auteur cinema is to be preserved and strengthened.

Film Synopsis

Henri is a cocky young actor who sees himself as cinema's next great action-adventure hero.  For some reason, the world is slow to take advantage of his talents and for the time being he has to make do with dubbing American shows and humiliating himself in television ads.  When his agent gets him a small part in the next film by a world-renowned film director - Cédric Rovère no less - Henri is over the moon, but his elation soon turns to disappointment.  What on Earth is he doing in the back of beyond, wasting his time on a low budget stack of arty-farty nonsense with a decrepit old filmmaker who constantly spouts poetry and can barely stay awake between takes?  Having taken a fancy to the film's leading lady, Gloria, Henri decides to stick around and feels honoured when Rovère unexpectedly upgrades his part.  Herni's discomfort over having to work on such a cheap and erudite film gradually lessens as he falls under his director's spell and begins to acquire a taste for culture that will remain with him for the rest of his life...