Paris (AFP)
In "La Fille au bracelet", in theaters Wednesday, thriller with Anaïs Demoustier, Roschdy Zem and Chiara Mastroianni, the director Stéphane Demoustier recounts in nuances the trial of a young girl accused of murder, without ever giving all the answers to the viewer.
"The Girl with the Bracelet" tells the story of Lise (Mélissa Guers), 18, who has been wearing an electronic bracelet for two years, because she is accused of having murdered her best friend.
The film follows his trial, with a very offensive general lawyer (Anaïs Demoustier), while his parents, played by Roschdy Zem and Chiara Mastroianni, try to hold on. Oscillating between doubt and the desire to support their daughter, they are sometimes overwhelmed by the situation and by what they learn about her personality and her contradictions.
Placed in the position of a juror, the spectator learns new information as the trial progresses, tormented by the desire to know a truth which nevertheless continues to elude him.
Nothing is all white or all black in this story, as close to human as possible so as not to fall into the too technical aspects of the trial, also giving Stéphane Demoustier the opportunity ("Clay", "Let's go children" ), brother of actress Anaïs Demoustier, to talk about a youth that can escape its elders.
"I wanted to watch this youth without judging it," explains the director in the film's production notes. "I built the screenplay around the mystery that this young woman represents to me. This is of course what interested me. Through this hollow portrait, I wanted to talk about the family".
"We always have the impression of knowing our children but the obvious inevitably appears: they are autonomous beings who are increasingly escaping us", adds the filmmaker, who has spent time in court in order to stick to the maximum to reality in his film, in which the president of the court is played by a lawyer, Maître Pascal-Pierre Garbarini.
At the end, "I wanted the field of possibilities to remain open", underlines the director. "We had access to a legal truth, but not to the primary truth. Everyone has to leave the room with their opinion."
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