Family can be loving, annoying, complicated – and it can be all of the above, all at the same time. And it can leave you with trauma. French writer-director Christophe Honoré’s (Marcello Mio, The Beloved) new film, Orange-Flavoured Wedding (Mariage au goût d’orange), is taking us back in time to explore a French family in all its dimensions.
And it does so with an ensemble cast full of established and rising French names. Adèle Exarchopoulos, Malou Khebizi, Paul Kircher, Vincent Lacoste, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Alban Lenoir, Myriem Akheddiou and Noée Abita are among the stars of the movie. The cast also includes Xavier Lacaille, Saadia Bentaïeb, Victoire Du Bois, Jules Sagot, Joann Brezot, Prune Bozo, Ji-Min Park and Andranic Manet.
“The Puig family has seven children. And today is the wedding of the youngest: Jacques. It is March 1978 in the suburbs of Nantes. The father is not attending the wedding; he has been banished from the family. The brothers and sisters, however, are all there, happy to be reunited. Jacques is marrying Martine. For the two of them, it’s a marriage of love. But can love heal the wounds of childhood?
Orange-Flavoured Wedding, for which THR can now debut an exclusive clip, world premieres in the Cannes Film Festival‘s Cannes Premiere program on Wednesday, May 20.
Honoré wrote and directed the film, with Jeanne Lapoirie in charge of the cinematography and Chantal Hymans doing the editing. Sales are being handled by Pyramide International.
“I feel as though I’ve known this film my whole life. Like a long-time friend whose face and voice are familiar to me. Even before shooting it, it was already there, diffused through every book I’ve written, every film I’ve made. I don’t feel like I directed it, but rather that I revealed it,” Honoré notes in a director’s statement. “Emotions pass from one person to another, shifting, transforming, connecting as much as they fracture.”
How autobiographical is the film? “It’s true that I know this family well. There isn’t a single character in this film whose date of birth I don’t know—and for some, whose date of death I don’t know either,” the auteur tells THR. “But I’m still hesitant to call this film autobiographical. First, because this film isn’t about me, but about a group of people about whom I don’t claim to know the whole truth. Second, because I wrote a screenplay that, for the course of a single day, allows these people to live a life that escapes my memories.”
Honoré had previously worked with Lacoste and Kircher and put together an ensemble cast full of rising, and known, talent. “That was one of the initial goals of this project: to assemble a troupe of young actors whom I would get to know,” he explains. “I sought to bring together a group of very different people who were, in a sense, united by the affection I felt for them. Before filming, we rehearsed a bit together. I told them the story of my family. I taught them ballroom dances: Paso Doble, Tango…”
But during the shoot, Honoré allowed them to follow their hearts and instincts. “On set, I let them live their own lives,” he tells THR. “I had decided that whatever they did, they now knew more about their characters than I did.”
Family is a recurring theme in the auteur’s films, and in convey a general idea, and in Orange-Flavoured Wedding, he looks to capture a mood and convey a broader idea. “I wanted the focus to be on how emotions flow between the members of a group – how the grief of one character is embraced by the entire group. The same goes for love and violence,” shares Honoré. “What interested me was constantly focusing on how the characters weave and reweave the bonds that unite them. This family is marked by tragedy. Their childhood foreshadows the catastrophes of their adult lives, but they persevere despite everything; they are valiant and courageous, together. It is when they are separated from one another that fate strikes them.”
In case you are wondering where the film title comes from, it is a reference to an American drink that makes a cameo in Orange-Flavoured Wedding and whose brand is still known today. Also mentioned in the film is the death of French singer Claude François. Both, the drink and the singer, are there for a reason.
“It so happened that on the afternoon of my uncle Jacques’s wedding, we heard the news of Claude François’ death,” Honoré tells THR. “Ever since then, whenever I hear one of his songs – or drink the orange-flavored beverage mentioned in the film – my entire childhood within that family comes flooding back. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that family was already on the verge of disappearing. Claude François’ songs are part of many French families’ lives; they represent a memory that is both intimate and universal. I hope they are, like this film, both comforting and a sign of a world that has vanished.”
With all that said, you will surely want a sneak preview of the movie and its characters to get a first visual and audio feel for this big family affair. So, go ahead and watch an exclusive clip for Orange-Flavoured Wedding below. Here comes Adèle Exarchopoulos. And here comes the bride!
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