When the Tide Comes

Colour, 35 mm
Belgium, France, 2004, 93 min
Section: Horizons
Oficiální stránky: www.filmsdulosange.fr

Synopsis

Irène is no longer young and beautiful, rather plump in fact, but with a child’s smile and unbelievably deep eyes. But you can’t see them when she comes out on stage because her character in the play Dirty Business wears a mask with a long pointed nose. Irène wrote the play herself, and it tells the story of a woman who has just killed her lover. In this absurd drama she is the only character, and she describes her life as so banal, boring and full of injustice that the audience doesn’t know whether to feel more sorry for the victim or the murderer. Irène travels with her one woman show from town to town through Northern France. One night she chances to meet the much younger Dries, who becomes her stage lover, and then her lover in real life. But nothing lasts forever...

About the director

Yolande Moreau (b. 1953) is a native of Brussels, and she worked there for a time in children’s theatre. In 1982 she wrote the one woman show A Dirty Business of Sex and Crime, taking it on the road in France, Switzerland and Quebec. In 1989 she became a member of the troupe La Compagnie de Jérôme Deschampes. At the same time she took a role in, among others, Amélie from Montmartre (Le fabuleux destin d’Amelie Poulain, 2000, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet). In 2004 she received two Césars for her writer-director debut When the Tide Comes.

Gilles Porte (b. 1965, Lyon) is originally a cameraman but on the film When the Tide Comes he worked as cowriter and co-director as well.