Live and play intensely

The Almond Trees

At 9:05 p.m. on Canal+

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, it’s no secret, was one of the two promotions from the mythical school of Amandiers de Nanterre directed, in 1986, by a Patrice Chéreau then at the peak of his theatrical career. A strong experience, which has had a lasting impact on her work as an actress and director and whose memories she revives in an intense cinematographic work.

At the time, Patrice Chéreau revolutionized the theatrical scene with the inclusion in the repertoire of plays by contemporary authors, in which he demanded a real exposure of his actors. From this fertile ground will emerge a whole generation of actors including Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Agnès Jaoui or Vincent Perez.

At the same time that it paints a very accurate portrait of the 1980s – by perfectly restoring the atmosphere, through the grain and the saturated colors of the image, the soundtrack as well as the incredible creative energy of these apprentice actors – , Valeria Bruni Tedeschi makes this “enchanted parenthesis” a vibrant tale of learning. However, she is careful not to hide the dark side of Patrice Chéreau, intelligently instructing Louis Garrel to give his version, between an exercise in admiration and assumed irony.

What is striking in Les Amandiers is this intensity in living and playing which irrigates the whole film and makes it a success. In this search for the “truth” of the actor so dear to Patrice Chéreau, the borders are abolished between life and the theatre, feelings are exacerbated, and the characters spill over onto their performers. The latter are eager to live their vocation with passion and cheerfully confuse reality and fiction, in a farandole that is both joyful and tragic.

The director revives her memories of an apprentice actress at the Théâtre des Amandiers and, at the same time, passes the baton to a new generation of actors, all of them great. A vibrant story of learning, at the same time as the very successful portrait of these 1980s, full of sound and fury.

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