There is a movie theater. It engulfs people with the voracious hunger that little more than two years of the pandemic have left it. A boy gets out of a blue almendrón on the corner of 23rd and L. When he closes the car door, he first looks at the time on his smartband and then towards the groups of people —like islands— that are at the entrance of the Yara cinema. A couple of minutes pass after 8:00 pm The young man breathes a sigh of relief, and greets several friends. The screening hasn’t started yet.
It’s Wednesday, June 15. Opening night. make me flya Franco-Italian film from 2021 directed by Christophe Barratier, has been the work chosen for the premiere of the 23rd French Film Festival in Cuba.
“It’s about to start!” emphasizes the usherette on the left and the invitations in her hand add up to almost a hundred. “There are only seats left upstairs,” says her colleague on the right, and invites the people on the other side of the glass doors to finish passing.
The boy with the almendrón casts a summoning glance at his digital bracelet. He touches it to display the time in digital codes, and makes a short call with his cell phone. Finally, he crosses somewhat annoyed and with an aura of resignation the entrance under the canopy of the projection room with an aboriginal name. Don’t be late for premieres!
***
There is a director. Silvery temples and a penetrating gaze are combined with the cadence of a voice that plays to find, in Spanish, the precise words to thank the attendees. This is not the first time that Christophe Barratier brings one of his works to Cuban moviegoers at a Festival of which he is the founder. Neither is the second nor the third. Make me fly It is the fifth of his cinematographic pieces that arrives on the Island as part of this cultural initiative that now spans more than two decades.
Barratier speaks to the audience from emotion: the film had its premiere in France in a time of pandemic, when the law required that movie theaters could only receive people up to 35 percent of their capacity, say the members of the delegation that accompanies him—; which is why Havana hosts its first screening in such a packed room. The applause, when the opening scene appears on the screen, corroborates this.
A few hours later, the director of make me fly he would confess that he was afraid; that he feared that after two years of absence the relationship achieved between French cinematography and lovers of the seventh art in the Greater Antilles had been broken. Later, he will say that seeing so many young people at Yara gave him a lot of hope about the future of the Festival.
Seated next to him, on the square gray vinyl seats of one of the Cuban Art Factory’s warehouses, actor Victor Belmondo —who plays reveler Thomas de make me fly— will highlight the positive energy provided by so many people happy to be in a movie theater. A preamble to which we arrived when two young journalists decided to take advantage, in a featuring media, the time granted from the busy schedules of visitors and ask as many questions as possible.
“Make me fly” is a film that is not limited only to the pure codes of comedy. The film has scenes destined for easy laughter, but it also immerses us in a carousel of emotions in order to show the bonds of brotherhood that are forged between Marcus and Thomas, its protagonists.
From the perspective of director and actor, what did the protagonists of the story get away with and what did they gain?
Christophe Barratier (CB): —They are two very immature personalities. Marcus’s lack of maturity makes him lead a very closed and lonely life; and the other—Thomas—comes from a rich family, but has lost his mother. The two try to bring something to the other, what he lacks. Perhaps what each offers the other creates turbulence; however, the fact of solving those turbulences is going to make them climb steps together.
“In Victor’s performance there is something very exterior, and at the same time a deep wound. His excesses and stupidities are, rather, ways of attracting attention that are perceived from that symbolic beginning in which he throws the car into the pool. For this public it may seem more silly, it is a way of saying to his father: ‘Dad, I’m sinking and you don’t see me’”.
Victor Belmondo (VB): —The interesting thing about the relationship between the two is that there was no leader. They are a true binomial, they complete each other. Both had something to learn and to give to the other. To understand the character well, I tried to ask myself why he acted this way. What had happened to him? What was he looking for to do things this way? In the end, I worked on what she was missing: she was missing his mom, as well as the love and attention of his dad. This was his way of screaming. Overreacting was the way for his dad and the people to listen to him again. Thanks to Yoann —Marcus— he finds another way to be heard, a much healthier one.
“Likewise, Marcus’s mom lives an absolute nightmare every day. She lives in fear of not being able to control her son anymore, that things are too much for her. However, reality gave her child a much more solid education than her father gave my character.
”Thomas’s father is a famous surgeon who seems to control everything, giving lessons on morals and how things should be done. However, he was blinded by his own way of doing things. So, by the parents of each one you see that the most reasonable is not the one that one thinks. What I liked is that in the end human values are the ones that triumph. My character, who seemed far from these values, returns to them thanks to contact with this young man”.
(Photo: Lázaro Darias Becerra / Cubahora)
Regardless of the particularities of our contexts and realities, the film reflects that living is a daily struggle. Likewise, joy is an element that permeates this film piece.
What other universal codes does “Make me fly” have that connected with the audience attending the Festival premiere and that could also connect with other foreign viewers?
BC: —Marcus, at the beginning of the movie, doesn’t want to fight anymore. He is tired of the care and no longer believes in his longevity. Rather than try to reason with him and tell him what to do, his doctor’s good idea is to bring him someone else who is having even more trouble. This means, in the end, that Marcus thinks ‘This guy is not going to help me, it’s my turn to help him’.
“It makes him want to live because he has someone to help. So when Victor’s character considers that he doesn’t have the skills to support Marcus, they have this strong argument that could be summed up as ‘if you don’t have the capacity to accept me as I am, you will never have the capacity to accept yourself as you are’” .
The complicity between director and actor is notable. Did this influence the filming work, perhaps, to have been fun and simple?
CB: —For us it was important that we achieve that state of mind of partying, of madness. We could make jokes like 10-year-olds, maybe 6… but when Victor acted he brought tears to my eyes. We could hug each other with emotion, and we didn’t do it because we have strong modesty. However, we do have this way of working with humor. It is not a form that I recommend, rather it is something that is found in life. Nor does it mean that I have the same relationship with another human being, in this case it was our common ground.
VB: —For me it was a great opportunity to work with Christophe. His is not a method as such: in concentration, on a film set, it is deconcentration. I need to demystify the moment of acting and think about something else. With some directors you can’t, they force us to be super focused on what one has to do.
“This time I got a director who likes to laugh before a take, and who allowed me to do it. We carry out this work seriously, but without taking ourselves seriously. This is only achieved when you know that things are there and there is a huge relationship of trust. If he had seen that he did not know the text well, that he was late for the set or that he had not prepared the staging and improvised everything, we would not have been able to laugh. I think that lightness on set also corresponded with the character of Thomas.
***
There is an actor. He walks at a leisurely pace towards an unknown scene. He is young. He looks somewhat overwhelmed by the sound of the applause that accompanies him in the short stretch that goes from his seat in the lower stalls to the podium where he will say a few words shortly. Victor Belmondo says good night in Spanish and apologizes for his poor command of the language and the consequent informal speech in his native language. He smiles, between sentences, naturally.
The same frank smile that would be activated half a day later, when a couple of journalists ask if there is another upcoming project with Christophe Barratier, and the director jokingly answers: “Sure there is. He owes me some money. Once everything is resolved we can talk.
A scene followed by another where Victor confesses that he finds an absolute model to follow in the acting imprint of his countryman Patrick Dewaere. Similarly, he shares that there is inspiration and learning lessons in all professionals who make movies.
The figure of the actor Jean Paul Belmondo and the applause that the public gave him when mentioning his name during the premiere at Yara are topics of conversation: “Those applause were loaded. It was a very emotional thing for me, and it happened because the room knew who my grandfather really was. He showed that the relationship between French cinema and Cuba is very strong”.
What is the influence of Jean Paul Belmondo’s work on Victor Belmondo’s career?
—Defining what there is of him in me is complicated, since I don’t have a permanent mirror with me. People tell me, very often, that there is something of him in my face and in the way I move. He was what he was, and beyond a magnificent actor he was a fantastic person and grandfather. I am what I am. He would like that, since he had his own path, I would have mine. I would look at that with pleasure.
(Photo: Lázaro Darias Becerra / Cubahora)
***
There’s a movie. Some of his scenes elicit joy and easy laughter; others deserve that we recapitulate around the priorities of daily life, and internalize where lies what could make our existence bearable.
make me fly it is a film that has remarkable sandwiches and palpable chemistry between its cast. As an audiovisual work, one could ask for more, much more, of course; and although it may not be part of a list of cult films, it will surely be able to establish some kind of connection with whoever goes to a screening room to view it.
“Will someone cry for you when you die?”, lapidary and transcendental phrase shared by the protagonists in the evolution of the plot; a kind of introspective evaluation that tries to elucidate the transcendence of a human being in the spirituality and emotional memory of his social environment. A question that occupied post on social networks of close friends present at the Yara premiere, and that is not a minor merit for a cultural product.
Nor will it be a minor film, if for the sake of displacing misfortunes as the center of our personal realities it continues to make us sing, with the same energy and brotherly affection of Marcus and Thomas in that karaoke scene, “Envole-moi/ Envole-moi , envole-moi, envole-moi/ Loin de cette fatalité qui colle à ma peau”; or what is the same, “Make me fly/ Make me fly, make me fly, make me fly/ Far from this fatality that sticks to my skin”.