Video failed to kill radio. Technological advances have been happening. From the turntable to the video itself, many have remained only for the memory. But the radio is still there. Perhaps because "it can be the light to fight against despair" and that is how the French director Mikhaël Hers puts it in his latest film, The Night Passengers, which competes for the Golden Spike at the Seminci.
Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Élisabeth, a woman whose husband abandons her in the early 1980s. She is left alone with her teenage children and doesn't know what to do because she has never worked. Her only solace is a radio show she listens to every night where celebrity host Vanda Dorval (Emmanuelle Béart) listens and gives advice to listeners who call in to share her desperation.
Although Vanda is a tough girl, she does not hesitate to give Élisabeth a chance when she comes to work on the show. During one of the broadcasts, Élisabeth meets Talulah (Noée Abita), a girl from the provinces who has come to Paris alone, who sleeps in hostels or wherever she can and who is much more desperate than Élisabeth herself, who gives her shelter in her House.
"I am interested in conveying the generosity, the solidarity of people, that of the presenter of the program with the protagonist and that of the latter with the young homeless woman, because I think there is something mystical related to solidarity," explains Hers in an interview granted to La Vanguardia on its way through the Valladolid Festival.
Although the film opens on election night in 1981 when the winds of change are blowing in France, the director explains that "I had no intention of dealing with political issues, as my first impulse was to enter my own adolescence from a sensory, impressionistic and I want the viewer to be captivated by the images of that time".
Despite this, The Night Passengers "is not an autobiographical story, although it does contain something from my youth, the sensations of everyday life and family," adds the director who considers it a "miracle" to have worked with Gainsbourg, because "he immediately entered the character and was able to find in the most natural way the facets that I wanted to prevail, his fragility and innocence, but also his lucidity."
Park Chan-wook won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival for Decision to Leave, which is now competing in the official section of the Seminci and which has received good applause at this morning's screening. Tang Wei is a detective investigating the death of a mountain climber. It could have been an accident or a suicide. But it is also possible that he was murdered by his beautiful young wife. The policeman follows that last lead, but he can't help but be attracted to the suspect.
