“We should have made a making of! “Laughs afterwards Alice Belaïdi. Vincent Dedienne, him, evokes an "apocalyptic" experience, but which left him with "brilliant memories". During the seven weeks of filming in Reunion of "Terrible Jungle", the directors Hugo Benamozig and David Caviglioli and their team had to face an incredible series of galleys.
Torrential rains
"The rain came at the speed of a man running," says Hugo Benamozig. During the filming of "Terrible Jungle", Takamaka, the valley where half of the scenes took place, experienced record rainfall. At many times, the takes had to be interrupted. "It allowed me to take short naps", smiles Vincent Dedienne, who specifies that he often got up at 4 am to shoot before the sun disappears, around 3 pm.
Hugo Benamozig, on the other hand, remembers these torrents of mud, which made it particularly difficult to transport technical equipment to the trucks. He also describes the feats that the sound engineer had to perform so that we don't hear the rain in the film… and “the hell” of a sequence where Catherine Deneuve and Jonathan Cohen were playing under a huge tarpaulin. makeshift: "We saw the tarpaulin get heavier and we drained the water between the intakes ...", he shuddered again. “We were well aware that the tarpaulin risked falling on us,” remembers Jonathan Cohen. Catherine was very happy: as soon as the conditions get a little difficult, she is very comfortable! "
A broken foot for Alice Belaïdi
On the fifth day of filming, the actress broke her foot getting out of a car. “Fortunately, I had already shot the scenes where my character crawls through the jungle,” says Alice Belaïdi. Since it was impossible to play with a cast, I then wore a splint in a large boot and sometimes took it off to play. The first few days, I took painkillers and the technicians made me a sedan chair so that I didn't have to put my foot in the mud… ”
The directors have also rethought certain scenes: "We sometimes filmed Alice and Vincent sitting down when we had planned to discuss them while walking through the jungle," says Hugo Benamozig. Who still recruited an understudy for some shots where the character of Alice must walk.
A car accident for Vincent Dedienne
The actor, he finished filming with a neck brace. "I was driving in a traffic jam and, when changing the radio station, I didn't see that the front car was braking and I got into it… I had a little whiplash", details Vincent Dedienne . Fortunately, the actor had already played the scene in which he finds himself locked in a cage with Catherine Deneuve: “At that moment, I said to myself My God, life has a lot of imagination! », He savored.
Technicians suffering from dengue
Two technicians from the team caught dengue, a tropical disease transmitted by mosquitoes that causes high fevers. They were therefore unavailable for a month. "During that time, we brushed ourselves with mosquito repellent, hoping not to be bitten by the bad insect", comments Vincent Dedienne.
A fire at the hotel
One night, the film crew were evacuated from the hotel where they were staying after a fire had broken out in the establishment's kitchens. “There were flames of 10 m! recalls Alice Belaïdi. We slept outside in deckchairs, but we were able to return to our rooms in the evening ... and find our clothes sooty. "Despite all these glitches, we finished the film on time and on budget," said Hugo Benamozig. Who, with his co-director David Caviglioli, intends to shoot his next film… in Reunion.
EDITOR'S RATING: 4.5 / 5
“Terrible Jungle”, French comedy by Hugo Benamozig and David Caviglioli, with Vincent Dedienne, Catherine Deneuve, Jonathan Cohen, Alice Belaïdi… 1h31.
