Guillaume Nicloux like different routes, to Be not laughter of happiness (1995), already presented at The directors ‘ Fortnight, to Valley of Love (2015) and The End (2016), by way of The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq (2014). For The Edge of the world , a war film, dark and bitter, he had to read Joseph Conrad and loved Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola.
Indochina in 1945. Robert Tassen (Gaspard Ulliel), a French soldier, is the only survivor of a massacre in which his brother and his wife had been killed. It is no longer just an obsession, revenge of the person who has committed, lieutenant Ho Chi Minh. The evil incarnate.
But Robert Tassen encounter love in the form of a young Mai (Lang-Khe Tran, who made his first and pretty not at the cinema). And crosses Saintonge, a writer of mystery that plays the role of guide, «vector», according to Gaspard Ulliel.
As for his two previous films, the filmmaker relies on a distribution of choice. He again sought this force of nature that is Gérard Depardieu. A «player and generous human who IS and is not playing», note Gaspard Ulliel who has learned that the object of his admiration was reading Saint-Simon. «He was paternal with me,» he recalls.
THE EDGE OF the WORLD [VF] [trailer] – Watch on Figaro Live
Carnal and raw
The thirty-year-old sees his own character as a «soul» floating between the world of the living and of the dead. A being tormented by guilt, caught in a «quest for the existential» on the borders of madness in a hostile environment. «There is something carnal and very raw in the way of filming by Guillaume Nicloux, the scenes of violence and sex,» observes the comedian is the new face of Chanel. Sensitive souls refrain. «It is more suggested than shown,» explains the director.
like its feature-length films previous, the places where Guillaume Nicloux turns are as important as the performers. The jungle is often shown through clouds of opaque smoke and mist is persistent making navigating the narrative between reality and lucid dreaming. The image of the historical truth that does not search for Guillaume Nicloux. He himself says, the denunciation of colonialism is not about the movie.
It identifies the more closely an ordinary man in unusual circumstances, the extremes, which affect his inner being. «He lives a nightmare and tries to cope with the Mai,» says Gaspard Ulliel. The latter has given much thought to the actor’s work with Guillaume Nicloux that was running it for the first time. In its own way.
«It is often said that an actor must learn his character, but with William, this is not possible,» said the comedian, he leaves the scenes fit together in themselves, he cultivates the unexpected, it was a great feeling of freedom. It’s enjoyable, it constantly seeks.» This was less the case for a series for Arte that they were touring together, It was a second time, around a man who does not love pain.
«The Edge of the world», war film by Guillaume Nicloux. With Gaspard Ulliel, Guillaume Gouix, Lang-Khe Tran, Gérard Depardieu. Duration: 1 h 43.
