With
One Year, One Night
, a moving portrait of survivors of the Bataclan attack, in cinemas on Wednesday, the cinema faces the night of November 13, 2015. More than seven years after the attacks in Paris and the Stade de France, which left 130 dead, including 90 at the Bataclan, and hundreds injured, this film is inspired by the testimony of a Spaniard, Ramón Gonzalez, who attended the Eagles of Death Metal concert with his companion the night of the attacks,
and
who was published in Spain.
The film opens just after the drama: Ramón the Argentine actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, revealed as a young HIV-positive activist in
120 beats per minute
and Cécile (Noémie Merlant), wander haggard in the streets of Paris, survival blanket on their shoulders .
Physically, they are unscathed.
But traumatized by the scenes they experienced, the first shots of the assailants in the pit of the concert hall, the race among the bodies of victims to find a hiding place, the anguish of waiting, hidden in a room ...
“ Post-attack
” fictions
have already been shot, including the successful series
En Thérapie
, the film Revoir Paris, which won a César for Virginie Efira, and Novembre, by Cédric Jimenez, on the hunt for the terrorists of November 13. , with Jean Dujardin.
But until now, French cinema seemed relatively hesitant to show the scenes of the attack themselves.
The director of the film, the Spaniard Isaki Lacuesta, hesitated to shoot them.
“
At the start, we wondered if it was possible to show nothing of the attack”
, he explained in 2022 at the Berlinale, where the film was presented.
Read alsoYou will not have my hatred, the first images of the film on the Bataclan drama experienced by Antoine Leiris
But he would then have had the impression of "
betraying
" the victims of the attack and of yielding "
to a cowardice of auteur cinema
".
To avoid any voyeurism, the film never shows either the assailants or the bullet holes: “
the terrorists are in the eyes of the victims, on whom we focused
”, he specified.
These scenes are inserted throughout the film, in the form of flashes that return to the characters, haunted by their memories.
Film the after
Above all,
Un an, une nuit
focuses much more on the “
after
”, these hours, these days and these weeks in which the victims are alone with their trauma and their couple put to the test.
"
We wanted to tell the part that we didn't see (in the media), what happened the following year, how to live, rebuild your life, not give up rock, love, sex, dancing and collective experiences
," said the film's producer, Ramón Campos.
Computer engineer and rock fan, Ramón multiplies anxiety attacks and will question all his life choices, while his partner Cécile, an educator specializing in teenagers in difficulty, chooses not to reveal to anyone that she is doing part of the survivors of the attack.
Ramón's trajectory is "
that of someone who is born out of the turmoil, meets himself
" after the attack, explained Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, who was nourished by numerous exchanges with the real protagonists, present before the film, during the shooting.
Just like Noémie Merlant.
Her character
“is in denial.
She continues to live by helping others.
Little by little, it overwhelms her.
“It's very important that there are films that exist, that are made.
It is a duty of memory.
It is important to share, to tell.
Then we watch them when we are ready
,” she added.