Forget Don Juan by Molière or Tirso de Molina, make way for the 2022 version: presented Sunday evening in Cannes, “Don Juan” by Serge Bozon reinvents the inveterate heartthrob into a rejected lover, embodied by Tahar Rahim.
In the post-MeToo era, wouldn’t Don Juan be a bit “has been”? Not for the director Serge Bozon who completely transformed the character. In his version, a sort of musical comedy with singer Alain Chamfort, Don Juan is a left man, obsessed with his ex-girlfriend.
The film centers on the story of Laurent (Tahar Rahim; “Designated Guilty”, “The Serpent”), a theater actor, abandoned at the altar by Julie (Virginie Efira; “Benedetta”). The cause ? Arriving at the town hall, the ex-bride surprises him looking at a woman from the window. Feeling betrayed by this look, she leaves without saying a word.
From there, Laurent sees Julie everywhere and sinks into depression.
By making Don Juan a man left behind rather than a heartbreaker, Serge Bozon reverses the imagination attached to this emblematic character of literature.
“From this point of view, I think we can say that the film has a feminist aspect”, explains its director to AFP. Moreover, “this Don Juan is an anti-hero. He keeps getting upset and being thrown by women, even if in the end he only burns for one woman: Julie”.
The only particularity of the original Don Juan that Serge Bozon has retained: Laurent’s view of women. The latter cannot help looking at them, even staring at them.
Not quite a musical, several scenes sung by Tahar Rahim and Virginie Efira punctuate the film. “For me, the music prolongs the painful side of the characters”, specifies Serge Bozon.
Scenes that were a challenge for Virginie Efira and Tahar Rahim. “They were incredible”, greets the director, who says he got on very well with Tahar Rahim: “He is an actor who is not afraid of ridicule and that, for an actor, is something rather rare”.