Sometimes, it is the people more than the project that energize, meaning that with Isabelle and Medeea, it couldn’t have been anything but good. When great directors or people you like ask you to work with them, you don’t wait to read, you just do,” confessed Daniel Auteuil. And from this collaboration of actors came “Donnant donnant,” the latest film by Isabelle Mergault, which hits theaters on October 6, 2010. Daniel Auteuil, Sabine Azรฉma, and Medeea Marinescu, the three main characters, are steeped in the prison world, depression, and the desire for murder. These are themes that are out of touch with current events, but Isabelle Mergault explains: “my current event is not to be in current events.”
The director wanted “to talk about people who are slowly fading away. Many no longer have desires. Even at 30, some are already set in their ways. They no longer feel vibrant. But all it takes is a small event for the heart to start beating again and for the person to come back to life.” Daniel Auteuil plays the character of Constant Billot, “who arrives in a small village where people are dozing off, where women have no more desire to be fashionable, where men speak poorly to them, and where couples no longer look at each other.” He will spark curiosity. A character that fits him perfectly. Moreover, the actor recalls: “I don’t remember us having any difficulties, but that also comes from the way Isabelle works. She doesn’t put us in a state of stress. She makes things easy.” When he talks about Sabine Azรฉma, he describes her as “always enjoying herself. She is someone who loves to play all the time.” The film’s title also arouses curiosity. Eventually, it becomes very explicit: it’s about a kind of pact concluded between Constant Billot and Silvia, a role played by Medeea Marinescu. Daniel Auteuil was delighted with the film once completed: “I find it very accomplished, very successful in terms of dramaturgy. Technically, I think compared to Isabelle Mergault’s two other films, there is more mastery, and in the construction of the script, it is something very accomplished.”
