{"id":25641,"date":"2014-09-12T21:36:27","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T13:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=25641"},"modified":"2014-09-12T19:08:25","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T11:08:25","slug":"michel-hazanavicius-and-berenice-bejo-of-the-artist-talk-new-film-the-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/09\/12\/michel-hazanavicius-and-berenice-bejo-of-the-artist-talk-new-film-the-search\/","title":{"rendered":"Michel Hazanavicius and Berenice Bejo of \u2018The Artist\u2019 talk new film \u2018The Search\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Movie<\/a>
Movie poster of The Search. From impawards.com<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014For his follow-up to 2012 Oscar winner and silent comedy tribute \u201cThe Artist,\u201d Michel Hazanavicius chose to explore much darker territory: the horrific atrocities of the Second Chechen War.<\/p>\n

In \u201cThe Search,\u201d which screens Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival, Berenice Bejo stars as a European Union employee who strikes up an unlikely bond with a nine-year-old orphaned boy. Meanwhile, a young man forced to join the Russian army slowly loses his humanity.<\/p>\n

Hazanavicius said in an interview that after the wild, unexpected success of \u201cThe Artist,\u201d he wanted to be challenged by something different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a normal human being. Like everybody, you like to laugh, and sometimes you feel sharp and sometimes you have patience and sometimes you feel sad. You have a lot of feelings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel that I have to do always the same movie. I love comedies, and I think it\u2019s a very noble genre, and I will be very happy to make other comedies. But this is a movie I wanted to make and I\u2019m very proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French director said he had long wanted to make a film about the Chechen conflict, even before he directed \u201cThe Artist.\u201d But the story began to take shape in his mind only after he saw the 1948 Montgomery Clift film \u201cThe Search,\u201d from which his movie is freely inspired.<\/p>\n

Bejo, who is married to Hazanavicius and charmed audiences as Peppy Miller in \u201cThe Artist,\u201d said she was proud of her husband for focusing on \u201cThe Search\u201d after taking home trophies for Best Picture and Best Director.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the Oscar, he had a few propositions and he (stuck to) his project. He went on with this one and it was not the easiest one to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I was proud. I think as an artist you\u2019re happy to be able to do movies that sometimes talk about something that actually happened, and to in a way take a position about something that actually happened. If you want to do it and you actually have the power to do it, I think it\u2019s really good to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple met while filming \u201cOSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies\u201d and have two children together. Bejo, who was born in Argentina but grew up in France, said there was never any question she would take the central role in \u201cThe Search.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (started) writing and he said to me, \u2018It\u2019s going to be you,\u201d\u2018 she said. \u201cOf course, if I feel like the character is not right for me, I would tell him. But he knows me good enough that when he\u2019s asking me to do a role it\u2019s because I can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She admitted to being a bit daunted by her character, whose attempts to communicate are often met with silence: either by the little boy she shelters, who is so traumatized he cannot speak, or by her government employers, who fail to pay attention to the ongoing atrocities.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a twist of irony after silent film \u201cThe Artist,\u201d in which her co-star Jean Dujardin got to utter the only line of dialogue.<\/p>\n

\u201c(In \u2018The Search\u2019) I\u2019m always talking, talking, and nobody\u2019s ever answering me,\u201d said Bejo with a sigh. \u201cBut I like the fact that she\u2019s starting with this global point of view of Chechnya and then she ends up being caught with this boy, and then her point of view becomes more personal. Then we can finally see what kind of woman she is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked why the husband-and-wife team enjoy working together, Bejo is quick to respond.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s so funny,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s a good director. It sounds obvious, but it works. Why shouldn\u2019t we work together if we can?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Toronto International Film Festival wraps Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO\u2014For his follow-up to 2012 Oscar winner and silent comedy tribute \u201cThe Artist,\u201d Michel Hazanavicius chose to explore much darker …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":25642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","mauthors-laura-kane","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}