Paris (AFP)
Convincing Catherine Deneuve to shoot a first film, for a month, in the heart of a tropical forest: an improbable mission but accomplished for two thirty-something directors with "Terrible Jungle", a comedy which comes out Wednesday.
By writing the screenplay for this feature-length film full of gags, the story of a novice anthropologist (Vincent Dedienne) who tries to escape, in the middle of the jungle, from the grip of his mother, Hugo Benamozig and David Caviglioli have everything immediately thought of the icon of French cinema, 76 years old, and more than 100 films on the counter.
To contrast with the character of Vincent Dedienne, naive explorer à la Tintin, the two Parisians, high school friends, then imagine a "super Deneuve, an extremely intimidating and very confident lady, who seems to have mastered everything in his life ", explains Hugo Benamozig. But without really believing it.
"At most, we thought we would give Deneuve in reference to another actress," laughs his sidekick and co-director David Caviglioli, cultural journalist behind the camera for the occasion.
"We did not believe it so much that we said + let's send him the screenplay, we'll move on and we will grieve for that +", engages Hugo Benamozig, who has studied screenplay and directed short- footage. "But the following Wednesday, we were going to have lunch with her. There, you are having the most stressful day of your life!"
To the surprise of the thirties, after a hearty meal, the business is in the pocket. "I think she liked the challenge, the idea of doing it," says David Caviglioli. His sidekick salutes his "courage" to set off at "12,000 kilometers to turn with a team that is on average 33 years old, where she does not know anyone".
On Reunion Island, where this film, which is supposed to take place in Guyana, is shot for practical reasons, the directors are delighted to direct Catherine Deneuve.
- "Quasi mythological" -
"You suddenly have all the cinematography in the world happening to you (but) you don't ask yourself any questions at all", says Mr. Benamozig: "she has this little magic that makes you not at all encumbered by its quasi-mythological presence ". And "you can say things to her. Well, seeing her obviously!"
On screen, Deneuve arrives in the middle of the jungle, like a distant echo of one of his most striking roles, in a duet with Yves Montand in "Le Sauvage", by Jean-Paul Rappeneau. The directors reviewed this 1975 film but underline that "the characters are very distant" from those of "Terrible Jungle".
As a tall haughty bourgeois, Deneuve maximizes the comic effect with his disdainful pouts, facing a stupid gendarmerie commander (Jonathan Cohen) or natives with a way of life upset by globalization.
"She is so much more professional than us", bows Hugo Benamozig. “At the technical level too, she saw problems coming thousands of kilometers ahead!”.
From the first meeting, Deneuve was worried about the way the directors planned to drive the imposing electric generators of the shoot in the middle of the forest ... One day of torrential rain, facing a director of photography in the mud up to his knees , the duo, "in a horrible galley", will bite their fingers for not having taken the warning more seriously!
In a month of companionship, the directors do not claim to have uncovered the myth of Deneuve, who has since suffered a stroke, at the end of 2019. Recovered, she resumed filming this summer, with a Emmanuelle Bercot's film, "De son vivant".
"In fact, we don't know her well. We never became intimate," admits David Caviglioli. "One evening, she told me that all her friends were asking her + But why are you going into the jungle with these young people?", Her co-director remembers: she simply replied "that she felt it well and that amused him ".
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