acques Audiard loves to lie. Not just because he is like every other director, but also because he is, above all, a screenwriter who enjoys telling stories. For almost 10 years, he had been working on other people's scripts - Confessions d'un barjo, Baxter, Mortelle randonnée - then one day, Audiard decided to shoot his own story: Regarde les hommes tomber. It was selected for Critics' Week in 1994, and won the Georges Sadoul prize and the César for debut feature. It also earned Audiard the respect of fellow professionals for his directing ability, even if his talent as a screenwriter was already well known.
But Un héros très discret still remains a risky second step: a period movie, about a false hero who eventually becomes a real one. Audiard did not want to direct the film at first, but was finally persuaded by his producer, Patrick Godeau. Written before Regarde les hommes tomber was shot, Un héros très discret's script was quickly sold. And a year later, Patrick Godeau once again asked Audiard to direct the film.
"When I re-read the script, I suddenly realised that I could only direct it if it was entirely re-written," says Audiard frankly. So that's what he did - with Alain Le Henry, with whom he already worked on Regarde les hommes tomber. The story takes place during World War Two - like everywhere else, a troubled period in French history. Traitors suddenly became heroes and vice versa. A man could live several lives - the majority of which he'd prefer to forget. The film's hero, Albert Dehousse (Mathieu Kassovitz), decides to invent himself a better life, where he joins the Resistance and becomes the hero he so obviously is not. He meets two girls, Yvette (Sandrine Kiberlain), a worker, and Servane (Anouk Grinberg), a bourgeois heroine. Jacques Audiard doesn't take a moral stand on this French 'Zelig': "After all, which lie are we talking about?" he says. "The one this little man tells to survive, or the one a whole nation tells herself because the truth is unbearable ?"
The film also illustrates the work of two men who have known each other since their partnership on Regarde les hommes tomber: Jacques Audiard, the director, and Mathieu Kassovitz, the actor. Kassovitz insists he does not want to be known as an actor, yet he received a César in 1995 for his part in Audiard's first film, and was nominated in 1994 for his role in his own first film, Metisse. His performance in Un héros très discret only serves to confirm his talent (he is on the screen during the entire film, 105 minutes). "Un héros très discret is an epic, but only in the way Little Big Man could be," he says. "Little Big Man's hero is an ordinary man thrown into extraordinary times."
A lot of French films have been made about the World War Two period in France, but few of them have focused on the ambiguity of many people's lives. "This period, the end of the war, 1944-1945, fascinates me," says Audiard. "It is the time when an enormous lie - one which my generation has grown up with - was created: France resisting, France sitting at the victors' table, France occupying…" Although the director's intention is serious, Un héros très discret remains more a comedy than a tragedy. The film was produced for Ffr37.8 million, by Aliceleo, and with funds from TV (France 3 and M6), Jean Cazès' Lumière and two Soficas (Studio Image and Cofimage). Un héros très discret was also granted an advance on receipts before shooting.
Audiard's auteur style which could be glimpsed in Regarde les hommes tomber, achieves its full potential in Un héros très discret.
Valérie Ganne
Prod co: Aliceleo, Lumière, Patrick Godeau
Dir: Jacques Audiard
Scr: Alain Le Henry and Jacques Audiard (from Jean-François Deniau's novel, Un héros très discret)
Ph: Jean-Marc Fabre
Art dir: Michel Vandestien
Prod des: Catherine Lapoujade
Costume: Fabio Perrone
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Editor: Juliette Welfling
Cast: Mathieu Kassovitz, Anouk Grinberg, Sandrine Kiberlain, Albert Dupontel
Running time: 105mins
International sales: UGC DAI
