Silence of Love Tous les Soleils

Overview

Credits non contractual

  • Awards:

    • The new film by Philippe Claudel (I’ve Loved You So Long).

  • Details:

    • 106 min - 'Romance' - French / Italian -
      2010
    • Color - 1.85 - Dolby SR - SRD - HD masters available

  • Directed by:

    • Philippe Claudel (I’ve Loved You So Long – Best Film Not in the English Language - BAFTA Awards)

  • Cast:

    • Stefano Accorsi (Romanzo Criminale, Un Viaggio Chiamato Amore – Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival 2002, Le Fate Ignoranti, L’Ultimo Bacio)
    • Neri Marcore (Il Cuore Altrove/The Heart Is Everywhere)
    • Clotilde Courau (La Vie en Rose, A Very Long Engagement)
    • Anouk Aimée
    • Lisa Cipriani

  • Produced by:

    • Yves Marmion – UGC-YM

  • Delivery:

    • Completed

  • Medias:

  • Photos

    Photos: Luc Roux - Thierry Valletoux

  • Synopsis

    Alessandro is an Italian professor of baroque music living in Strasbourg with his daughter, Irina, 15, in mid-teenage crisis, and his brother Crampone, a delightfully eccentric anarchist who has repeatedly applied for refugee status ever since Berlusconi came to power.
    Alessandro sometimes feels like he's raising two teenagers, but is unable to acknowledge the void of his own existence. In trying too hard to be a model father, he forgot to rebuild his love life, especially as he is surrounded by an offbeat group of friends who stop him from ever feeling lonely.
    But as his daughter discovers the thrill of first love, Alessandro's life is unexpectedly and dramatically transformed...

  • Crew

    A film by
    Philippe Claudel
    (I’ve Loved You So Long – Best Film Not in the English Language at the BAFTA Awards 2009, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlin Film Festival 2008, Best First Work at the Cesar Awards 2008)

    Producer
    Yves Marmion – UGC-YM

    Cinematographer
    Denis Lenoir
    (Paris Je T’Aime, Demonlover, The Clearing)

    Art director
    Samuel Deshors
    (I’ve Loved You So Long)

    Producer
    Yves Marmion – UGC-YM

    Principal photography
    May 2010

    Delivery
    2011

  • Director’s notes

    Silence d’Amour is a film born out of the music of Tarentella, folk songs from southern Italy, whose origins get lost in the mists of time. This music is reputed to have magical powers, particularly to cure ailments, heartache, melancholy and madness provoked by the bite of a spider. The songs can be very lively and upbeat or extremely melancholic and lilting. I enjoyed dreaming up the life of a professor of Italian origin, who teaches the history of this music in Strasbourg, and whose life is marked by the death of his wife, Louise, fifteen years earlier. To a certain extent, he is still haunted by his lost love. It seems incurable. Yet he's not a sad, withdrawn or depressive man, quite the contrary. He lives with his teenage daughter, who never really knew her mother, and his wacky, eccentric and endearing older brother, Crampone, who lives the life of a baroque anti-Berlusconi émigré. Alessandro has friends and is a cheery kind of guy, but subconsciously he won't allow himself to fall in love again. He doesn't see women as potential partners. He only worries about his daughter and his over-protectiveness stifles her somewhat.

    Although the story was born out of music, or rather the effect it had on me, I wanted to explore different kinds of music in this story, particularly the music of language. Alessandro and his brother are Italians who have settled in France, but the film also features a German, a Portuguese, a young Dutchwoman, another from Lithuania, and other minor characters of Spanish or North Africa origin. I like showing that the melody of all these accents makes up the French of today and that the interaction of all these people from different horizons testifies to our contemporary culture. I wanted to consider who we are and why we choose to live in one place or another.

    The choice of Strasbourg as the location for this story was dictated not just by the different nationalities of its inhabitants - I am always struck by the mix of languages and accents one hears in its streets - but also by the fact that the city, which to my mind is underused by modern French cinema, offers a rich array of characterful settings. I am very attached to provincial life, especially in eastern France, my home region, and I enjoy rooting my novels or films in real places     (Nancy for my previous film, Strasbourg for this one), which allow me to focus on the type of human relationships that one can have in the provinces and that are, to my eyes, very different than those one finds in a city like Paris. I would add that the area around Strasbourg—the vineyards of Alsace and the nearby Vosges mountains—was also an important consideration, since certain scenes enable us to discover these landscapes.

    After a film like Il y a longtemps que je t’aime / I’ve Love You So Long, which explored the pain and trauma of a woman, then her rebirth, I wanted to take a different angle on life, less tragic, much more lighthearted and funny, and tell a story that contains different levels of comedy, as well as more emotional and serious aspects. Silence d’Amour is in the vein of French films driven by the depiction of characters and the observation of their relationships, pleasures and pains, by directors such as Claude Sautet, whom I greatly admire, and in the vein of Italian films, such as the comedies of the 60s and 70s that so artfully blended comedy verging on farce with high emotion.

    Through the tone of the writing and direction, and the choice of actors and locations, I hope to be able to give the audience enjoyment and something to think about, pleasure and profundity that the different nuances of the tarentella will emphasize. I also hope to make a modest contribution to reviving the tradition, which has been slightly lost, that saw actors from Italy and other countries perform in French films. My intention is to offer—through a story about people everybody can identify with—an artistic illustration of this European entity that we talk so much about, but perhaps don't fully explore.

    Philippe Claudel

  • Main characters

    Alessandro - Stefano Accorsi
    Aged 45-50, professor of musicology at Strasbourg University.
    Alessandro has lived in Alsace for about twenty years. He likes this part of France and feels at home there. He originally came to study and never left, after meeting his wife, Louise. They had a daughter, Irina, but when she was just a few months old, Louise died in a car crash. Alessandro never really got over her death. He transferred all his love to his daughter, devoting all his energy to her, neglecting his own life. He may have had a few affairs, but he always had the feeling he was betraying the woman he loved. Gradually, his heart fell to sleep. The fact that Irina is growing up, becoming a teenager and awakening to love scares him deeply because he is subconsciously confronted with his own inability to love and a disturbing new reality: one day, Irina will be a young woman and will move away, leaving him alone once more, without the only person who was a daily reminder of Louise for him. Alessandro loves Irina deeply, but he doesn't understand her. His attempts to communicate all fail and their relationship is based now on conflict, sometimes violent. Alessandro tries to be a good father, but it's not that easy. The generation gap is there. His relationship with Crampone, his older brother, is both funny and affectionate. They form an odd couple - one very responsible, the other a dreamer out of touch with reality. Their mutual affection shines through the burlesque confrontations they often end up having. Alessandro's work, his visits to the hospital to read for patients and his circle of friends are enough, he thinks, to make life fulfilling, but he's deceiving himself and when he meets a woman, Florence, for whom he immediately feels something profound, he is unable to act. Without the help of others, especially his daughter, it wouldn't take much for him to miss the new opportunity life puts in his path.


    Crampone - Neri Marcore
    Alessandro's elder brother, Crampone is an adorable parasite who has never worked in his life. A modern-day vitellone, he moved in with his brother in Strasbourg after Berlusconi was first elected in Italy. He considers himself a political refugee and constantly demands refugee status from the French government, which refuses to listen. He has decided never to speak Italian, an efficient means, he believes, of political protest against a regime he does not recognize. Always dressed in the same toweling bathrobe, Crampone never leaves the apartment and does all the cooking and cleaning. He spends his free time painting still lives with a single subject - an apple and mobile phone, which symbolize the decadence of a society with which he believes he is at war. He refuses the offers of a Swiss art dealer, who pesters him to sell his work. Crampone and his niece, Irina, have a very close, understanding relationship. He also maintains a curious relationship with the postwoman, who is fascinated by this eccentric. He tries to make her his disciple and convince her that only postal terrorism and sabotage are an efficient way to fight the power. A totally burlesque character, who spends hours watching dumb, romantic soaps or holding erotic chat sessions on internet while pretending to be Alessandro, Crampone can also be touchingly sensitive. The older brother who never grew up, he acts protectively towards Alessandro, as if he has chosen to stick close by so that his brother doesn't succumb to his grieving.


    Irina - Lisa Cipriani
    Alessandro and Louise's daughter, Irina, never knew her mother, who died when she was barely a few months old. At the start of the film, she's a 15-year-old teen who looks younger, but isn't hung up about it. She's in 10th grade, happy and not traumatized by growing up without a mother. What bothers her most is the way her father overprotects her, treating her like the child she isn't anymore. Irina is in the middle of the wonderful and contradictory period of change that is adolescence, when you begin to break free of the people who brought you into the world. She's becoming more politically aware, more independent, more sensual—and everything is a cause for conflict with Alessandro. Camille, the daughter of two of Alessandro's friends, is Irina's confidante, as is her maternal grandmother, Marie-Thérèse, to some extent. Irina discusses with them her growing feelings for Aurélien, who's in the same year at school. Young and free, Irina embodies mobility, and sense of fun and love for life. Constantly evolving, she contrasts with the two adults at home, Alessandro and Crampone, who to some extent have become sluggish, unable to confront reality. Moreover, it's thanks to Irina that Alessandro finally realizes that he has been wallowing in romantic lethargy for years, and decides to change.


    Agathe -Anouk Aimée- and Florence -Clotilde Courau
    Agathe is just over 70 and has been in the hospital for some time with an incurable disease. She remains serenely smiling, however, and Alessandro's visits to read for her have given birth to a close friendship, of the kind between two people separated by a serious age difference. Alessandro knows that Agathe hasn't got long to live, and so does she. We realize that his presence and words are important for her. Agathe tries to encourage Alessandro to choose life, for it is tragically short. One senses that behind her peaceful expression, the old lady conceals a pain she doesn't dare express. This suffering comes from her falling-out with her daughter Florence. They haven't seen each other for five years, and Agathe chooses not to inform her daughter that she is dying. We meet Florence for the first time at Agathe's funeral. She stopped seeing her mother after a series of fights, mostly over the man Florence had decided to live with. Agathe and Florence love each other intensely but are never able to say it and unintentionally hurt each other. When Florence meets Alessandro, she has realized that her mother was right—she's on the point of leaving her partner, who turned out to be a real loser, as Agathe predicted - and just how much she loved her. The pain of her loss is tempered by her meeting with a man, Alessandro, to whom she is immediately attracted. The fact that he knew her mother contributes undoubtedly to the pleasure she feels in his company. "Introduced" to Alessandro by her dead mother, Florence enables him to tear himself away finally from his dead wife and rejoin the world of the living.

  • Press

    “A multicultural comedy with anti-Berlusconian accents”
    Madame Figaro

    “SILENCE OF LOVE is a bighearted film that makes you happy.”
    “A beautiful tribute to Italian comedy”
    Version Femina

    “A superb juxtaposition of romantic comedy and metaphysical drama”
    L'Express Styles

    “A film filled with a light, grace and tenderness that is touching”
    Le Figaro Magazine

    “A warmhearted film with an Italian accent”
    Journal du Dimanche

    “Stefano Accorsi has style”
    Elle

    “Sharp dialogue, wacky but realistic situations and acting right on key.”
    “This comedy about love, friendship and death really leaves you feeling happy.”
    Le Parisien

    “A rich and bighearted comedy”
    “An ode to life, love and friendship”
    La Croix

    “A sentimental escape, lighthearted, tender and fresh”
    “SILENCE OF LOVE will enchant your eyes as well as your heart.”
    Le Figaro

    “A pleasant feel-good movie”
    Télérama

    “Funny, endearing..."
    Le Vif Focus     (Belgium)

    “A charming and poignant comedy”
    La Libre Belgique     (Belgium)