17/02/2006

Claude Chabrol and Robert Altman are the two veteran filmmakers with highly anticipated films in official competition at theBerlinale. If Altman's A Prairie Home Companion is so far the critics' favourite, the expectations around Chabrol's A Comedy of Power [+see also:
trailer
film profile] are getting higher and higher as the film officially screens this evening, only two days before the awards ceremony.

With Chabrol and Isabelle Huppert teaming up for the first time since Nightcap (Merci pour le chocolat) (2000), A Comedy of Power is a tale about the allure of power and the consequences it has for a woman obsessed with it. Magistrate Jeanne Charmant-Killman (Huppert) investigates an embezzlement case involving the managing director of a large group of companies. She soon realizes that her power is limited and conditioned by a hierarchically superior power. However, Jeanne keeps enduring in this man’s world, as if destined to do so. After all, isn't her surname Killman?

"I did not seek to expose events, which are already known by everybody, but to enquire into the consequences of power for a human being", stated the 76-year-old director. Based on real events - without reporting on them - the plot of A Comedy of Power jumps back and forth from the public to the private sphere, showing Jeanne's personal life to be as corrupt as the criminals she is chasing. If the whole financial scandal is portrayed with wit and humour, Chabrol decided to use a more serious tone for Jeanne's marriage. With no room for domestic satires, here we meet a decadent couple, where husband and wife have become invisible to each other.

When asked if he himself was obsessed with power, Chabrol stated that "the power of a director is so enormous that it doesn't exist. The power actually belongs to producers, and luckily in France they are still human". For Huppert, "Chabrol is not a dictator, but he has immense power over his films, which is invisible. He has an invisible iron fist".

A Comedy of Power was co-produced by Alicéléo, France 2 Cinéma, Ajoz Films and Integral Film, with the participation of Canal + and Cinecinema, and the support of Procirep de l'Angoa – Agicoa, CNC and Filmförderungsanstalt. Paris-based company Wild Bunch is handling international sales.