Next week, I will be live from the Palais des Festivals, but in the meantime, everyone can go tonight to see the opening film, which traditionally also comes out in theaters. This year it’s called “La Vénus électrique,” and it is directed by Pierre Salvadori, known for his bittersweet comedies, with a touch of melancholy, and a great love for cinema – which is evident in this film about a widowed painter trying to reconnect with his deceased wife through a fortune teller. The film is a bit shaky in places, a bit awkward and hesitant like the character played by Pio Marmaï, but his vulnerabilities are balanced by the great faith that emanates from him: faith in the stories that are told, and what they do to people.
“La Vénus électrique” is one of the main attractions at the Saint-Ouen fair, a town that is not yet the suburbs in the late twenties, accessed by crossing the old forts on the way to what was then called “the zone.” On a platform, a man calls out for Venus Electrificata – played by Anaïs Demoustier; she approaches, wearing a red wig and dressed in a corset and a cape, placing her hands on two large metal balls connected to an electric system, and the machine is activated. Any brave man with money in his pocket can then try the experience: kissing Venus and feeling the famous lightning strike.
Tonight, Suzanne exits the performance, exhausted as always, and sneaks into Claudia’s fortune-teller caravan to borrow some drops of laudanum. Suddenly, Antoine, a completely drunk man, insists, with a big bill in hand, that she puts him in touch with his recently deceased wife, Irène. Suzanne plays along and agrees to visit him the next day. Antoine is a painter who has stopped working since his wife’s death. Armand, his friend and art dealer, realizes that Suzanne, whom he wanted to get rid of, is reviving Antoine, and a pact is formed to continue this game where only the unhappy painter is the dupe. That’s what it seems like, at least. Because Suzanne is not immune to Antoine’s charms, and becomes even more fascinated by him when she discovers Irène’s journal, which tells a captivating love story.
As always in Pierre Salvadori’s films, there is a flaw: this was actually the literal theme of one of his films, “Dans la cour,” where a concerned character played by Catherine Deneuve was convinced that everything in her Parisian neighborhood was about to collapse. This risk of collapse is constant in Salvadori’s cinema, which is primarily comedic but haunted, constantly threatened by depression and suicide. Love is full of ambivalences, and until the end, we wonder who is exploiting whom, and if authentic feelings can truly prevail. It’s a cinema of uncertainty and melancholy that relies on all the tools of cinema to blend silliness and sadness.
There will be many films at Cannes this year that deal with films in the making and stories being written, and the impact they can have – including works by Almodóvar and Sorogoyen. From this perspective, “La Vénus électrique,” a film of doubt and faith, is a good opening film.
