The filmmaker experiences the creative and deviant power of the feeling of love in a dramatic comedy where words become the driving force behind the direction.
It really gets off to a very bad start with an overhead voice-over which defines the contours of the story. An effect that the authors of French comedies abuse to create a pleasant complicity between the hero and the spectator. However, speech for Mouret is not a simple accessory, it is even the reason for his films. Depending on its modulations, it imposes different rhythms, provokes actions or thwarts them. Above all, she physically and psychologically dresses characters held prisoner by fully formulated moral dilemmas. Art of rhetoric where chance cannot be accidental. Once the first few minutes of these Three friendsthis word comes down from its pedestal and creates a direct tension between the protagonists.
Joan (India Hair) also hesitates to confide in Alice (Camille Cottin) about the erosion of her feelings towards her companion. To say is to embody things and therefore to admit that they exist. But Joan's heart cannot lie, whereas Alice's adapts to circumstances. In these Three friendseverything reflects on the surface of the lips, of the bodies and therefore of the frame. Words fill and suffocate space. Actions attempt to match the word given or confiscated. Emmanuel Mouret quite courageously opposes to the living, a ghost whose spectral presence here questions our relationship to the tangible. Three friends is intended to be a variation on the romantic discourse where each person crosses swords with their own conscience. The fluid and slender staging sets a blistering pace. Stimulating.
By Emmanuel Mouret. With Camille Cottin, Sara Forestier, India Hair… Duration: 1h57. Released November 6, 2024