We cannot escape our destiny. This is the message conveyed in The Successor, the brand new film by Xavier Legrand, starring Marc-André Grondin. A message that also sticks to the journey of the French filmmaker, visiting Quebec this week, as part of the Cinemania Festival. The Press met him.
At 44, the director of Until the Guard signs his second feature film and his first France-Quebec co-production. You should know that Xavier Legrand arrived at the cinema late. At the beginning of the 2010s, after having played a lot in theater in France, the actor wanted to write… “I first tried to write theater, but I quickly realized that my writing is more cinematic than theatrical, he says. So I wrote a short film [Before you lose everything]. I had a producer read it, and he asked me to direct the film, even though I don’t have any training in cinema. »
This man could not have advised him better: the short film won a César and was nominated for an Oscar in 2014. This will be followed by Until the Guard, his first feature film which also addresses domestic violence and toxic masculinity. Another triumph with five Césars in 2019: best film, best actress (Léa Drucker), best original screenplay, best editing and César for high school students.
The Successor tells the story of Ellias Barnes (Marc-André Grondin), the new artistic director at the head of a prestigious haute couture house. Established in France, the designer has cut ties with Quebec and its past. While he has just launched his new collection and is enjoying his success in Paris, Ellias is urgently called to Montreal, for the funeral of his father who suffered a heart attack. A father he never loved and whom he hasn’t seen for 20 years. He plans to settle the inheritance in two or three days, but his father’s inheritance turns out to be heavier than expected…
“It’s a genre and hybrid film,” explains the filmmaker. Part thriller, thriller, horror and dark tale. And it is also a modern tragedy, because I borrow from the codes of Greek tragedy. This is the cohabitation of terror and pity. »
In his attempt at repair with his late father, Ellias therefore runs towards disaster like Oedipus. “We are witnessing its fall,” adds Legrand. He is in a sort of denial, completely unable to name what he is experiencing. He is an antihero who wants to save himself, because he is always afraid of dying. But he will plunge into an infernal spiral, into Dante’s labyrinth. »
Alongside Grondin, we find Quebecers Yves Jacques, Anne-Élisabeth Bossé, Louis Champagne, Vincent Leclerc and Marie-France Lambert.
The director is full of praise for the performance of his main actor. “I have rarely seen an actor arrive in these throes in the game. In power and in fragility. Marc-André [Grondin] has the ability to transform from one scene to another. He is fantastic ! »
The successor is freely inspired by a novel by Alexandre Postel, The Ascendant. “I took a lot of liberties, I moved away from the novel to transpose the story to Quebec, so that Ellias’ fall was more brutal than in the novel,” says the director who collaborated with the Quebec author Dominick Parenteau-Lebeuf for the screenplay.
The filmmaker would really like to come back here to direct a repertory play with Quebec actors. “There would undoubtedly be Yves Jacques and Marie-France Lambert in the production,” he hopes. We will see if Quebec’s destiny is favorable to it.
