05/09/2006

Screening today in competition, The Untouchable [+see also:
trailer
film profile] sees the return to Venice one of the festival’s regular filmmakers, Benoît Jacquot, in his third collaboration with French actress Isild Le Besco.

Set between France and India, Jacquot's latest film follows the trip of young actress Jeanne, who is told that her father – whom she had never met – is an Indian man belonging to the caste of untouchables. Jeanne decides then to take a journey in search of her real identity and the film leaves behind the dull atmosphere of the character's life in Paris, moving towards a more ethnographical approach in India.

"For me, living in Paris, India is the most distant of the cultures", said Jacquot who had been to the country a year before principal photography the The Untouchable began, studying the local spots that could potentially become shooting locations. When he returned, there was still place, however, for unplanned scenes, such as the impressive ritual of burning dead bodies.

"We shot in a kind of clandestine way, as if doing a documentary. At the same time, people understood we were on their side, that we’re not the typical film people who stay in fancy hotels, avoiding any communication with them. We didn't go through this experience as tourists", added Le Besco.

The documentary style of this part of the plot is clearly favoured over Jeanne's personal melodrama, which, paradoxically, is overly explored in the film's first part (still set in Paris). Once Jeanne's curiosity is partially satisfied, she has no courage to follow her goal to the end, leaving us with the feeling of an unfinished mission that seems not to disturb the character but which certainly contributes our own partial dissatisfaction.

Produced by Sangsho in association with Arte France Cinema and backed by the CNC, Pyramide, which is also handling international sales, is set to release The Untouchable in France on December 6.