Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2016: #27. Benoît Jacquot’s Son corps

Son corps

Director: Benoît Jacquot
Writer: Benoît Jacquot

We’re still sulking over the initial plans Luca Guadagnino had for adapting Dom Delillo’s novella The Body Artist back in 2013, a project that fell apart soon after a cast comprised of Isabelle Huppert, Sigourney Weaver, David Cronenberg, and Denis Lavant was announced. Producer Paulo Branco reassembled the package for French director Benoît Jacquot, who re-wrote the screenplay with actress Julia Roy (If You Don’t, I Will, 2014), deciding on a different approach for the material, now featuring notables such as Amalric and Balibar. Jacquot, often an underrated filmmaker, has had a prolific few years following the success of Farewell, My Queen (2012), competing in Venice a year later with 3 Hearts (2014) and popping up in competition at Berlin 2015 with an adaptation of The Diary of a Chambermaid (previously filmed by Jean Renoir and Luis Bunuel). We’re excited to see how Jacquot interprets this strange tale by DeLillo, which concerns a filmmaker who falls for a young body artist named Laura following a retrospective of his work. They marry and move to a secluded house by the seaside. But when he unexpectedly dies, Laura is left alone in the house, visited by a peculiar presence.

Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Victoria Guerra, Julia Roy, Jeanne Balibar

Production Co./Producer: Alfama Films’ Paulo Branco

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic) TBD (international).

Release Date: Berlin and Venice tend to program Jacquot in competition. Filming was completed in mid-December, so if it’s not ready for Cannes (where Jacquot last competed in 1998 with The School of Flesh), we expect another Venice premiere.