• “Josée, the tiger and the fish” opened the Annecy festival this Monday.

  • It is also the first of three films that represent Japan in competition.

  • It's a beautiful love story with a heroine inspired by the novels of Françoise Sagan.

It's a water story before being a love story. Kumiko lives in books and drawing, dreaming of discovering the sea. Tsuneo studies marine biology, hoping to someday dive into tropical waters. Their paths will cross ... which will allow them to narrowly avoid a serious accident. Their passions will also come together, but we would be remiss to say more ...

What is certain is that

Josée, the tiger and the fish

, which opens the Annecy festival and comes out in stride, this Wednesday, June 16, is a first film in the form of romance that gets off the beaten track. beaten.

And this for many reasons.

The director Kotaro Tamura, who was the assistant of Mamoru Hosoda on

Les enfants loups

, recalled one, this Monday evening at the opening of the Annecy Festival, where the film is one of the twelve feature films in competition: "Rare thing for a Japanese love story, the protagonists are both over twenty years old.

Which promises a much deeper and more interesting story than it seems.

And we won't complain.

Together to see the sea

Second surprise: the heroine Kumiko is paraplegic from birth, which is not trivial in an animated film.

Shy on the surface, she is willingly authoritarian towards Tsuneo, who shows great patience with her.

They will get to know and appreciate each other.

Together, they will go to see the sea ...

Finally, Kumiko calls herself Josée, which sounds weird for a young Japanese girl.

It is a reference to a heroine of Françoise Sagan in three of her novels.

Here again, we are touched by the way that Japanese artists take hold of French historical or literary figures, from

Lupine III

, Japanese grandson of Arsène Lupine to Marie-Antoinette, an icon in Japan thanks to

The Rose of Versailles.

...

Françoise Sagan from Osaka

The person responsible for this choice is Seiko Tanabe, the author of the short story from which the film is inspired.

"She left us leaving behind the following words:" I thought to become the Françoise Sagan of Osaka ", underlines the director in the press kit.

It is very likely that in order to portray a young girl fascinated by Sagan, Tanabe passed on to Josée a bit of herself and her story.

Deemed to be fine and biting, Seiko Tanabe is known for her portraits of leading women and unconventional couples.

Like those we find in

Josée, the tiger and the fish

.

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