Fabrice Du Welz – Interview

Discovered with Calvaire, rural horror movie about a small time crooner (Laurent Lucas) being sequestered by a degenerate innkeeper (Jackie Berroyer), Fabrice du Welz imposed himself as one of the most singular voices of European cinema. A Status that owed him the less reticent critics and moviegoers’ acclaim (those of the Etrange Festival for instance) instead of a real public hit. From underestimate Vinyan (2008), taking Emanuelle Béart into the deep Thai jungle, to Alleluia (2014), transposing the “Lonely Hearts Killers” story in his native Ardennes, he has been able to develop his author obsessions despite tough productions.

His sixth feature film, Adoration (January 22 in theaters) can be seen as the culmination of his path. Lonely countryside boy, Paul (Thomas Gioria, first seen in Custody) meets Gloria (Fantine Harduin), a young girl put in a mental hospital. They both escape in the wild. A crazy love story shaped as an elegiac river movie (like a road movie on water), solar and suffocating at the same time. A big step forward for the Belgian director, internalizing André Delvaux and Julien Duvivier’s magical realism, also conjuring Terrence Malik’s poetry. Meeting at the Etrange Festival’s backstage with a director freed from genre constraints.