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

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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.

Nicholas Bell
Nicholas Bell
Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), FIPRESCI, the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2023: The Beast (Bonello) Poor Things (Lanthimos), Master Gardener (Schrader). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.

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