By directing Le Petit Voleur, Erick Zonca accepted to confront his harsh style to a tv-commission for the Right/Left collection of Arte. One might have feared that his style would loose its asperities in the process.

Contrary to expectations, Erick Zonca made no bones about it and, with an equally mobile camera-work, followed the destiny of his young character, S., a trainee baker who leaves Orleans in the pursuit of hoodlum dreams.

He lands in Marseille where he integrates into a small band of thugs. But his yearning for self-assertiveness is soon undermined by the new yoke he has to wear under chief Tony's command.

The idea of the movie came to Erick Zonca as he was writing the script for La Vie Rêvée des Anges (The Dreamlife of Angels). "I had written a scene in which a trainee baker suddenly quit his job, but I did not keep it in the movie", Erick Zonca explains. For him, S. is one young man among thousands of offshoots of an industrial society where education fails, and the feeling of inadequacy leads to rebellion and violence. "S. thinks that he can assert himself among the band of thugs, however it is organized into a strict hierarchy. It is a structure that pressures him into submission. S.'s story leads him back to square one in the end as many a youngster who come to a deadend exploring violence".

Eager for role models, S. identifies with Tony, the leader, the boxer... Imitation leads him to try boxing, mimicry of the same attitudes and fierce expressions. An mausing scene shows S. hit a door with his head as if it were a gangster. A reckless deed which yields no glory, only a very big bump.

Erick Zonca's film soon shows how S. fails to become someone in his new environment. A scene shows how he descends to stealing the meagre loot of the old woman whom he is required to watch over. Another shows the brutal rape which Tony perpetrates against him, revealing the limits of his aplomb as a leader.

S. loses his illusions. He chooses to leave the band after one last burglary, but is caught and left to bleed to death in the street, under the implacable sun of Marseille.

Yet, death is not the final destination for S. The end of the movie sees him revert to another violent reality, that of the working world. Nonetheless, the doors of self-assertion are yet to be attained... Erick Zonca managed to escape the conventions of suburbian movies, comic-book clichés and even TV movies to deliver a strong fiction that proudly conveys the sensations of true cinema.

Robin GATTO

Director: Erick Zonca

Erick Zonca was born in Orleans, France of Italian origin. American cinema grew on his adolescent years until he decided that he wanted to become... an American actor. He took acting lessons, in Paris before moving to the USA at the age of 20. After a few small jobs (dishwasher..) and a few nights under the stars, Erick Zonca married a dancer from the Merce Cunningham company. He then discovered all the European films which he hadn't seen in France and developed an equal liking for them.

Back in Paris, he studied philosophy and went through a few more small jobs, and reached his thirties before starting to work for television programs as a trainee. In 1992, he directed his first short, Rives. Hix next two shorts Eternelles and Seule drew attention in many festivals, winning the Grand Prix at the Short Film Festival of Clermont Ferrand. There, he met Elodie Bouchez, who would star with Natacha Régnier in the prize-winning The Dreamlife of Angels, his first feature. Before this film was screened at Cannes 98, Pierre Chevalier, head of the fiction department of Arte, asked him to direct Le Petit Voleur for the Right/Left collection.

He also directed a few commercials (for Citroën, Press-Pocket, and MacDonalds) and collaborated actively on Virgine Wagon's first feature, Le Secret. He now seems bound to direct his new feature telling the story of an abduction in Eastern Europe.

Filmography

Le Petit Voleur : 1998
La Vie Revee Des Anges : 1998
Seule (short) : 1996
Eternelles (short) : 1994
Rives (short) : 1992

Screenwriter: Virginie Wagon

Although he wrote his first two shorts on his own, Erick Zonca wrote his following films with Virginie Wagon and wishes to entertain this collaboration as long as possible. Virgine Wagon has a hand in all the creative stages of his films, from the writing of the script to the shooting, to which she brings her own sensitivity. Erick Zonca considers her as his right-hand lady. He took his turn to collaborate on her first feature, Le Secret (working title), expected to take part in the competition of the 53nd Cannes Film Festival.


Actor: Nicolas Duvauchelle

Antoine Carrard, who had already discovered Natacha Régnier for La Vie Rêvée des Anges, spotted Nicolas Duvauchelle in a boxing club in the suburbs of Paris. "When I look at him, I think of James Dean and Paul Newman at an early age," Erick Zonca said about him. "He has a very beautiful, uncommon voice." Nicolas Duvauchelle's performance in Le Petit Voleur served him well: he has already added another TV film and two films by Claire Denis (among which Good Work - Beau Travail) to his very young career.