Paris (AFP)

One would think oneself in the middle of a ballet work session, if not the man alongside the dancer of the Paris Opera is not a rehearsal, but Cédric Klapisch who completes his last film, small " miracle "shot in the midst of a pandemic.

On the stage of the Théâtre du Châtelet, which this week hosted the last days of the filming started in December and also carried out in La Villette and in Brittany, Marion Barbeau signs her debut in the cinema and a return on the set, while the cinemas of show have been closed for more than five months.

The 30-year-old ballerina thus reconnected with "strong emotions that can only be found in the theater", even if the experience varies appreciably once in front of the camera.

"A ballet presented in front of an audience, it's very frontal. Here it's more subjective, we guide the spectator there we want the eye to settle," says AFP the first dancer, rank preceding the supreme title Canvas.

- "The sense of detail" -

She tirelessly repeats an arm movement in a scene from "La Bayadère", a 19th century ballet in which the heroine dances before getting injured, which shatters her dream as a star.

Cédric Klapisch, who fell in love with dance at the age of 14, multiplies the "Action!"

"Cut!"

until you get an "aerial" gesture.

"In dance, the rendering is more global, here you only have to think of your hand for example ... it's interesting because the sense of detail is more developed. audience, but on camera, everything can be seen ", specifies the dancer, at the Opera for 12 years after having been" little rat "for six years.

Unlike some films like "Black Swan" favoring actresses like Natalie Portman and liners for the roles of ballerinas, the director has chosen real dancers for his 14th feature film, which is scheduled for release in 2022.

One of his films, "Les Poupées russes", had already rubbed shoulders with the world of classical dance with the ballerina Evguenia Obraztsova playing a character and he had made a documentary on the star Aurélie Dupont.

"There is something very wonderful in ballet, and when you have access to the backstage, it's even more magical," he told AFP.

Besides Barbeau, whom the director found "touching" in the cast, we find the Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter and the hip hop dancers Mehdi Baki and Léo Walk in a cast which includes the actors Pio Marmaï, Denis Podalydès and Muriel Robin.

- "metaphor" -

When writing the screenplay, the director of "L'Auberge Espagnol" did not suspect to what extent the story of the injured dancer would appear as "a metaphor for what we saw, on isolation, on stopping something ".

Dozens of masked people sneak into the Châtelet room who will be the film's false audience.

Backstage, ballerinas in tutu warm up and on stage, the Klapisch team scrutinizes a close-up of Marion Barbeau's eyes on the screens.

"I find it amazing to have made this film (which is one of the 239 films approved in 2020, editor's note). There was this side + we can't but we do it anyway," he says.

Shechter, whose company is based in Great Britain, "told me it was a miracle because all of their shows had been canceled. They were in a daze because they had not danced in months. Suddenly. , paradoxically, this Covid gives something to the film ".

The heroine ends up rebuilding herself after an encounter with Shechter's troupe.

Cliché where contemporary dance is "liberating" in opposition to the "straitjacket" of classical?

Both the director and the ballerina reject this interpretation.

"No one wins over the other," Klapisch emphasizes.

© 2021 AFP