Klapisch offers bittersweet slice of life in Ma Part du Gâteau

by Fabien Lemercier

16/03/2011 - "The world produces more and more profits, and fewer and fewer people benefit from them!" This observation gave rise to the idea for Cédric Klapisch’s Ma Part du Gâteau [trailer] (“My Slice of the Cake”, see news), which is being launched today in 566 theatres by StudioCanal.

Starring Karin Viard as an unemployed northern French factory worker who becomes a cleaner and Gilles Lellouche as a Parisian financial trader at his peak, the film (which has divided critics, as is often the case with Klapisch’s work) is in the vein of cinematic social criticism explored through the bittersweet prism of comedy.

"How we share the world, its wealth…Who earns what? Who pays what? Who benefits and who loses out? All these questions arise over and over again but unfortunately they’re never resolved," insists Klapisch. "The film describes a somewhat unreal encounter (a trader never meets laid-off workers), but this fiction is about what’s happening today which, on the other hand, is very real".

The director claims that nowadays "making things is no longer a source of wealth. What matters is flow and movement: virtuality is worth more than reality. This film doesn’t talk about the clash between rich and poor, but about the relationship between the virtual and the real."

Citing the influence of Ken Loach, Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria and Frank Capra’s films, Klapisch also mentions Pretty Woman: "The Americans may be very good at getting us to believe that a nasty trader can change with the love of a girl he has rescued from the gutter, but I wanted to say, sorry, that’s not how it works! So in a way it’s an anti-Pretty Woman."

Also hitting theatres are Pierre Lacan’s French/Belgian thriller The Law of Violence [trailer] (see news – Haut et Court on 130 screens); and Charles Nemes’s comedy Au Bistro du Coin [trailer] (“At the Bistro on the Corner”, EuropaCorp Distribution in 82 theatres).

Impressive non-domestic European films in the line-up include Brit director Ken Loach’s Route Irish [trailer], discovered in competition at Cannes 2010 (see review – Diaphana Distribution on 126 screens); Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-winner In a Better World [trailer] by Denmark’s Susanne Bier (see interview – Equation on 25 screens); veteran Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira’s The Strange Case of Angelica [trailer], unveiled in the Cannes Un Certain Regard section (see review – Epicentre Films on 25 screens); Maria Lindberg’s Finnish animated film Moomins and the Comet Chase (MK2 Diffusion – 38 screens); and Jose Luis Penafuerte’s Spanish/Belgian documentary Paths of Memory (Colifilms Diffusion).

(Translated from French)