Three years after directing what is one of the best films of his filmography, ‘An Impossible Love’, the French Catherine Corsini returns with a real hit on the board with ‘La Fracture’who competed for the Palme d’Or in the Official Selection of the 74th Cannes Film Festival and won the César for Best Supporting Actress at the latest 47th edition of the French Film Academy Awards, where she was nominated for five other awards. The director brings out her more social streak for a film than explores the recent economic and political situation in Emmanuel Macron’s France.
The title of the film alludes to the various meanings of the word ‘fracture’, as two of its protagonists end up hospitalized in the emergency room after suffering a fractured limb, as well as the crack in French society’s trust in government institutions, which showed its greatest discontent with the emergence of the Yellow Vests movementnarrating the night of his first protest, November 17, 2018. A divided society to which the title also alludes, which shows a France all in flames.
Corsini dares to make a film with a strong social criticism with a proposal that mixes comedy and drama, with a series of situations that result in a sublime tour de force with which the director, who signs the screenplay together with Agnès Feuvre and Laurette Polmanss, creates one of her most vindictive works.
Everything starts from a way worthy of the stories of crossed lives, a road worker joining the Yellow Vests movementwho attends the demonstration on the Champs Elysées, where he is hit by a tear gas that takes him to the hospital emergency room. At the same time, a couple of women on the brink of separation end up in the same health center after one of themwho makes a living as a cartoonist and illustrator, broke her arm while trying to reconcile with his wife when she leaves the house.
Corsini borders several realities in the same place, since France is a country in which there is a strong awareness of the use of public health, because it coincides on such an important day with a bourgeois couple that clashes with the current working class reality. In such a fragmented society, with contrasting social classes, Corsini shows un clash of prejudices with respect to others, both on one side and the other. In the midst of the social crisis, a health system on the verge of collapsewith tired and fatigued toilets, which also have their own needs.
Caterina Corsini shows her commitment with a magnificent dramatic comedy of social denunciation
The director frontally shows a divided reality which, when brutally clashed, causes the paradoxical effect of the dialogues, causing that feeling that calms down after the storm. The director doses the timing well, creating a true tour-de-force that squeezes the audience but never suffocates it, thanks to a series of soul-hardening sequences, long enough to push the audience back to the limit of the spectators.
The director demonstrates a masterful ability to manage multiple tracks at the same time, thanks to a very clear script that she wants to denounce and how many sticks to touch. On the other hand, nothing would have been possible for her main actors. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Marina Foïs form a magnificent tandemit is appreciated that Corsini portrays a homosexual couple with great naturalness, showing marital and social problems far from their own sexuality, which is never the center of attention.
Applause also for Pio Marmaï, who has spent a season proving once again why he is one of the most mature performers of his generation. However, The one who dazzles for bringing that dignity and professionalism to the bathrooms is Aïssatou Diallo Sagna, winner of the César for Best Supporting Actress for this role. Nurse by profession in real life, Sagna reflects the reality of many nurses and how complicated it seems to reconcile work in a profession where women have more obstacles to be able to reconcile personal and professional life. Decidedly, It is the one that best reflects the demand for greater work and economic recognition for health professionals, who have to face extreme situations. where you see a mental force that requires more attention.
Corsini returns to direct a new triumph in his filmography. Vengeful and courageous in her denunciation of her, the director makes a multifaceted proposal in which she leaves no puppet with her head and in which each group is also shown with its different chiaroscuro. A reflection of a tense society, which shows France as the cradle of the Revolution, but also as the most evident exponent of the drift of European society in the face of social inequalities. A committed feature film, which once again shows how the French industry is once again the bastion of this denouncing cinemaless and less popular in theaters and that with films like this once again claim their right to be seen in their element, the big screen.
Note: 8
The best: Corsini’s control of time. The interpretation of Aïssatou Diallo Sagna.
Worse: It risks being taken as a denunciation film that stays in no man’s land when it hits several sticks.
Source: E Cartelera
