10/10/2007

Impressing audiences despite negative reviews has never put off Jean-Jacques Annaud, who is back in cinemas today with his tenth feature, His Majesty Minor [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Starring two of the most bankable French actors at present (José Garcia and Vincent Cassel), the film – released on 497 screens by StudioCanal – was nevertheless a challenge for Annaud, who is no stranger to box office success and whose filmography includes hit titles The Name of the Rose, The Bear, The Lover, Seven Years in Tibet and Two Brothers. The challenge this time, however, lies in the director's having ventured into new territory, to make a mythological, Dionysian and intensely liberating comedy, which he describes as “a story before fishing was invented".

Scripted by Gérard Brach, the film also brings together Sergio Peris-Mencheta (The Borgia), Mélanie Bernier, Claude Brasseur, Rufus and Jean-Luc Bideau for a tale set on an imaginary island in the Aegean Sea, in pre-Homer times.

Minor (Garcia), half-man, half-pig and a mute orphan, meets Dieu Pan, alias Satyr (Cassel), who initiates him into paganism. After dying and coming back to life, Minor exhibits a gift of stupefying eloquence and is crowned King, but his reign is far from easy. The larger-than-life tale, even bawdy in moments, was made on a generous €30.4m budget.

A 90% French production by Repérages with Pathé Renn Productions, France 2 Cinéma (€1.55m) and France 3 Cinéma (€1.15m), was pre-sold to Canal + and CinéCinéma and co-produced by Spain’s MediaPro.

Other new arrivals on screens this Wednesday are documentaries: Alastair Fothergill’s Earth (a German-UK co-production released by Gaumont on 444 screens), Lagerfeld Confidentiel [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by French director Rodolphe Marconi (Pretty Pictures, 16 prints, see article) and Camilla Guzman Urzua’s French/Cuban film The Sugar Curtain (Epicentre Films).

Features out today include Olivier Panchot’s Gallic production Sans moi [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news – Haut et Court, 31 prints) and The Secret [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Vincent Perez (Europacorp, 120 screens).

Lastly, Ad Vitam is opening Shane Meadows’ multiple award-winning British feature This is England [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see article) on 55 screens.

(Translated from French)