The small fishing village on the grey coast of Normandy is the setting for Alix Delaporte’s lovely debut feature starring Clotilde Hesme as Angèle, a young woman with a dark past looking to reconnect with her young son, who randomly meets local Fisherman Tony played with a quiet intensity by Gregory Gadehois.
Angèle and Tony is a small delicate film. A romance of the unlikely. It’s gentle pace is more to do with the awkward nature of the relationship between the hard-working, honest and unpretentious Tony and the vulnerability and natural beauty of Angèle. For Director Delaporte, whom flickfest was granted some time with “the story came from a spontaneity to work with her two principals”. But more so, puts it down to pleasure. In her eyes the story is about “a mother who really is afraid to be in front of her son, because she thinks he won’t like her anymore after being separated for so long”. We see very early in the piece that Angèle has been in prison, but for what remains a mystery. The quiet fishing village serves brilliantly to set this mood. The greyness over the expansive Atlantic ocean lends itself, not so much to the mystery, but helps to dissolve, in a sense, of what things ought to be. Delaporte says “there are many ways to be a mother”.
And so with relationships. The pairing of Tony, a man it would seem not accustomed to the advances of a woman of Angèle’s sexual forwardness, is naturally cautious when they meet after placing personal ads. “He has a strong mind, and is not weak. Old fashioned, but clever”. Fishermen are according to Delaporte, “very instinctive people. Maybe it’s a little bit ideal, no? The guys are strong. The job is hard. Something that makes it ideal for me is that the guys go out to sea and leave the women all together in solidarity. Feminine solidarity”.
In the role of Angèle is Hesme (pictured) who is equally captivating but, unlike Tony, trades cautiousness for a strong maternal instinct that leads her to offer herself sexually in order for her to be received. Meeting her in person is a delightful pleasure, standing incredibly tall, she has both model beauty as well as a coquettish sincerity. She says “It’s a film I hold close to my heart. I chose the director not the role. I realy dont mind what I have to do in the script. I need to trust the person”. Hesme adds that her performance was related to instinct, “The most important thing is to stay true to yourself. It’s not about making great performances with limitations, it’s to be close to what you are, but in a instinctive way”.
While for some the film may come across as slow, even inert at times, Delaporte counters this by saying, “I don’t want to give too much explanation. When I wrote the script I was wondering whether I was going to tell the audience everything. I wanted to think that the audience is quite clever. When Angèle is on the push bike, It’s a gift to you – to make your own movie. I don’t want to tell you what to think. It’s like a place for yourself, where you can rest”. The solitary scenes of Angèle cycling show a struggle of a woman regaining her motherhood. Delaporte is clear in that “It demands your thoughts. Asking for your efforts means I don’t take you for a dumb person. I like it when there are not too many words, when there are not too many explanations”. When asked for influences it wasn’t any suprise to hear her say “Ingmar Bergman and Elia Kazan. Those guys like to watch people and listen”.
With her debut feature receiving well deserved praise and a string of awards in France particularly for her stars, Delaporte reflects on her directorial experience saying that she must “let the thing happen and to direct the actors less and less. It is the actors who propose very personal things. This gives me the distance to just say to the left or right”.
Angèle and Tony opens 4th May.
