L' Amitié

Seit sich Cavalier vor gut drei Jahrzehnten vom konventionellen Filmgeschäft verabschiedete, ist er zum feinsinnigsten Porträtisten und Tagebuchfilmer geworden. Diesmal filmt der 91-Jährige mit ungebundener, brüderlicher Neugierde, was Alltag, Gesprächigkeit und Lebensgewohnheiten dreier Freunde hergeben. Sie gehören unterschiedlichen Milieus an: Boris Bergman hat Texte zu hunderten von Chansons geschrieben, Maurice Bernart war unabhängiger Filmproduzent und Thierry Labelle ist ein jovialer Motorradkurier. Sobald die Digicam im Spiel ist, wird aus Freundschaft nun Komplizenschaft und Inszenierung. Drei Wunder an Vitalität vor – und eines hinter der Kamera. (Gerhard Midding)

For Alain Cavalier, a filmmaker who has called himself a “filmeur” since his 1996 video-diary LA RENCONTRE, sensibility and gaze merge into one, just like in the first shot of L’AMITIÉ, which shows an eye being embraced by a heart. With a loving gaze and small handheld camera, Cavalier, now 91, looks back on friendships that have accompanied him across his career to illuminate the emotional bonds between him and these various collaborators. He reunites with Boris Bergman, lyricist for 1980s French rock icon Alain Bashung and his mythical song “Vertige de l’amour”, with whom he worked on an unfinished film project. Later he meets with Maurice Bernart, producer of his masterpiece THÉRÈSE, and his wife Florence Delay, a writer who also acted for Bresson in PROCÈS DE JEANNE D’ARC. The third part is touchingly straightforward and shows his encounter with Thierry Labelle thirty years after his performance in Cavalier’s LIBERA ME. Focusing on the material world, faces and fragments of bodies to find moments that can become, in Delay’s words, “little revelations of the world”, Cavalier captures the traces of this shared intimacy with poetry and infinite tenderness, reminding us that cinema can be all about encounters and companionship. (Nepheli Gambade)

Alain Cavalier: LE COMBAT DANS L’ÎLE (1961), L’INSOUMIS (1964), MISE À SAC (1967), LA CHAMADE (1968), LE PLEIN DE SUPER (1976), MARTIN ET LÉA (1978), CE RÉPONDEUR NE PREND PAS DE MESSAGES (1979), UN ÉTRANGE VOYAGE (1980), THÉRÈSE (1986), PORTRAITS (1987), LIBERA ME (1993), LA RENCONTRE (1996), VIES (2000), RENÉ (2002), LE FILMEUR (2004), HUIT RÉCITS EXPRESS (2006), LES BRAVES (2008), IRÈNE (2009), PATER (2011), CAVALIER EXPRESS (2013), LE PARADIS (2013), LE CARAVAGE (2014), SIX PORTRAITS XL (2017), ÊTRE VIVANT ET LE SAVOIR (2019)