San Sebastian Festival: when "Arthur Rambo" tweets blast Karim D
Photo of the film Arthur Rambo by Laurent Cantet, in competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and whose release (repeatedly postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic) is now announced for February 2022. © FISS
Text by: Isabelle Le Gonidec
8 mins
Laurent Cantet's latest feature film is competing in the official selection of the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
A festival which is preparing to celebrate its 70th anniversary and still gives pride of place to artists and productions from the neighboring country in its different sections since it was the actress and producer Marion Cotillard who opened the ball by receiving the Donostia prize for this edition.
Arthur Rambo
, a film warmly received by the public and which tells the descent into hell of a young writer, played by Rabah Naït Oufella, promised a bright future but caught up with hateful tweets, posted in a previous life.
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At the opening of the film, Karim D, a little borrowed, poses in front of a raw green background.
From the green of all the hopes placed by his agent and his publishing house in this very young writer, from an immigrant background and born in the Paris suburbs.
A beautiful fruit of the school of the Republic.
A false background in reality, like this world of appearance, of the spectacle that is television.
Karim D is preparing to be interviewed for his book: a very nice tribute to his mother who brought tears to many readers, including his girlfriend.
The mother, a consensual and strong character who speaks in all cultures.
On the cinema screen, superimposed, tweets parade, laudateurs.
Friends of Karim D, readers, admirers ...
Rabah Naït Oufella from
Between the Walls
to
Arthur Rambo
Karim D is finely interpreted by Rabah Naït Oufella, his face now shaded by a thin mustache. Flash back: Rabah was also the rowdy kid from the college of
Entre les Murs
, the film that no doubt made Laurent Cantet known to the general public. The film told the daily life of a young French teacher in a college in a working-class district in the east of Paris. It was in 2008 and Rabah, born in the 20th arrondissement, was 14 years old at the time.
Karim D, hanging on his cell phone, runs out of dates. It is HIS evening, that of his consecration, he receives a film proposal, he dances, we tear himself away ... The flattering tweets continue to scroll on the screen, then it is the rocker. Old posts of his resurface: signed by a certain Arthur Rambo, a double "
villain
" he had created years earlier. Provocative, nonsense, regrets Karim D: on social networks, to make the buzz the more trashy we are, the more fans we have. But there are also anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic messages ... at odds with the smiling and smooth image of the young Beur de Bagnolet in the room full of books that
his new friends
"sell
"
.
This story is reminiscent of others, said the film crew at a press conference. That of
Mehdi Meklat
in 2017, former journalist of the Bondy Blog and France Inter or that of
Mennel
, ex-candidate for
The Voice
competition
. Both have been implicated by hate messages or deemed conspiratorial on social networks. But Mehdi Meklat was also the author of articles "
very well thought out and written on the suburbs
", recalls Laurent Cantet, who likes to work on social issues "
incarnate.
»And seized with this last film of an eminently sensitive subject, both media and political: the impact of social networks, their mastery and mastery also of cultural codes and therefore also in the background of the issue of social inequalities.
"
These young people were born with social networks, but there is a misunderstanding of how they work
", underlines the director.
As such, Karim / Arthur Rambo is representative of a social divide that exists today in France: when someone expresses himself, who he is and from where he speaks have an impact on the reception of the message, explains the film crew.
A role worked to the millimeter
A point of view shared by Rabah who admits to a moderate practice of social networks and recognizes belonging to the last generation who grew up without them while the next generation grew up with them. The soccer ball rather than the smartphone. “
Internet is not real life!
”, Nevertheless we must live with it and learn to master the tools to avoid falling into such errors. He explains how much his role has been worked on with Laurent Cantet, "
Monsieur Cantet
" as he calls him. “
We discussed a lot, rehearsed, it was precise. Me as a spectator, I have sympathy for this character ... his desire to cross a first border which is the ring road and a second border, that of literature -
two worlds that are foreign to him
- and then overnight the doors close.
"
The former scratching student of
Entre les Murs
has since come a long way behind the camera, first in modest roles and then more important as
Grave
by Julia Decournau
or
Nocturama
by Bertrand Bonello
. His practice of music - of rap for which he wrote the texts -, his experience of the stage, helped him to be less afraid of the camera, recognizes Rabah, who seems rather naturally reserved. And his bulimia of early films - he is a gourmet foodie and cook - was succeeded by a controlled appetite. “
I'm not an actor who needs to shoot all the time ... I take my time and select the projects that interest me. After
Between the Walls,
I kind of accepted everything that was offered to me: they were opportunities to gain experience and I was also discovering this environment ... and then I started to wonder if the questions that the film raised m were interested, if the film could have an impact, around the age of 20-21.
It was then that I considered making it my job and since then I have been selecting!
When François or Bertrand become Mouloud or Abdel
When asked if as a young man of North African descent he was labeled
"
Arab" as an actor, Rabah, who is of Kabyle descent, nuance. “
We cannot deny that as an actor with an immigrant background
,
in France, we are often faced with the same role proposals.
"He also admits having refused many ... Before turning with Julia Decournau, he had gone two years without working in the cinema and had ruled out several projects, he tells us. "
I had never made a genre film, it immediately attracted me and for a homosexual role, which I had never before been offered! In the script, my character was called Adrien ... I often cast for roles with first names like François, Bertrand ... except that when I have the role, the character in question becomes Mouloud or Abdel .. Suddenly, I asked the director: 'and so Adrien, how is it?', She did not understand and Adrien remained Adrien ... The film worked well with the critics and the public and afterwards I was only offered homosexual roles [
laughs
]! That's it, it's part of the game and suddenly I went back months without filming ... What I wish for myself: to play roles that are different from each other! "
Break the labels and take risks like Vincent Cassel, one of his benchmark actors.
Arthur Rambo by Laurent Cantet: before the eruption of the character he created for twitter, Karim D promises to be a successful writer.
© Mémento Films
In the second part of Laurent Cantet's film, excluded by the literary and social world to which he aspired and by some of his friends, Karim D will seek refuge in the family cocoon in the suburbs, where he finds his mother and his little brother. My favorite scene in the film, Rabah tells us, is the one that pits him against his little brother - played by the young Bilel Chegrani - who accuses him of denying his tweets, of betraying them, him and his college friends who are its loyal supporters. "
Isn't it true that we live in ghettos, that the cops mistreat us?"
»
, Launches the teenager at the end of his argument to his older brother. A harsh and very strong scene, remarkably interpreted, which once again raises the question of the emission and reception of a message whatever its nature. "
It's not a scene that came in easily, it has been rehearsed a lot and it moves me a lot because the protagonist (Karim D) takes all the violence of what he could write ... words that 'he wrote, thinking that it would be read in the 3rd or 4th degree, are taken in the first degree by his little brother
.
When the late new Arthur Rimbaud takes the Rambo monster he had created right in the face.
►
Also to listen
:
The workshop
of Laurent Cantet, film noir for a confused youth
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