Marion Cotillard: "I try to protect myself from the image the public has of me"

Special correspondent for the Berlin Film FestivalIn Marion Cotillard She doesn't hesitate to play with her image as a great diva of modern French cinema. She already did it in the drama Family Matters by Arnaud Desplechin, where she played a proud actress entrenched in her hatred towards a writer brother, and now she returns to the role of a famous actress in The Ice Tour, by the French Lucile Hadzihalilovic, a modern and perverse reinterpretation of the tale The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen which was presented this Sunday in the competition of the Berlinale.

In the film, Cotillard plays a cold and cruel diva who establishes a strange relationship with an orphan girl who has taken refuge in the studio where a film is being shot. a film creates a mise en abyme

But the director had doubts about offering her the role. "I thought it might be disturbing for Marion to play an actress who has such a distorted view of herself," explains Hadzihalilovic. "The image people have of you is always a sensitive subject, even for someone with a career like hers." Cotillard, however, plays it down: "The public has always made up the lives of actors or singers, especially now, with the access they have to celebrities through the media and social networks. I try to protect myself from the image the public has of me, whether good or bad, because it is always a distorted image."

The duel between the diva and the debutante

The diva who plays the actress in The Ice Tour She is an almost fantastic figure that the orphan girl observes with fascination. Through a cold atmosphere and metacinematic games, Hadzihalilovic builds a bond between the two that flees from psychological realism to embrace the allegorical power of the fairy tale, especially when the relationship progresses and delves into the dark side of Cotillard's character. "I don't necessarily see her as a diva, but as a wounded woman who has silenced her emotions," says the director.

The young actress Clara Pacini, whose physique is reminiscent of a teenage Audrey Tatou, overcomes with flying colors the challenge of playing the opposite of a Cotillard in full possession of her faculties and magnetism. Even so, it is strange that an actress of this category, an Oscar winner and the image of Chanel, says that she felt "very intimidated" by a newcomer like Pacini during filming. "She's very charismatic," Cotillard explains. "When we met at her house, I didn't dare look her in the eye. In the relationship between our characters there is fascination, a certain violence and an attempt at domination, and there was also something special between us, so I just went with it."

Cotillard's majestic air and Pacini's fragility in need of affection are, therefore, the dramatic materials with which Hadzihalilovic works to create this perverse tale not suitable for children. "Stories are sometimes very cruel," recalled the director of films such as Evolution either Earwig–. I tend to make films that are, on a certain level, fairy tales, but that's because they're all about growing up, as many fairy tales do.

Grandma on the run

Also in the official section, Gabriel Mascaro sets the scene The last blue in a dystopian Brazil where, when they reach a certain age, older people are stripped of their rights and forced by the government to leave their homes to live in a cologne with other elderly people so as not to harm the country's productivity. The idea does not appeal to Tereza, 77, who embarks on a delirious adventure to fulfill one last wish before her forced retirement: to fly in a plane. Humor, lack of pretension and a touch of delirium are the main arguments in favor of this friendly reminder of the right to dignity of the elderly, a fresh and daring version of the geriatric comedies with mischievous grandparents that work so well with the public that frequents the movie theaters during the week.