Radmila Djurica

Veteran French actor André Wilms, guest of the International Film Festival FEST 2012 in Belgrade has delighted journalists and Belgrade audience with his vital, remarkable and high-spirited energy. The star of, must be over 50 films by now, including Le Havre, the Cannes FIPRESCI Prize winner directed by Finish film director Aki Kaurismäki sounds as he’s getting tired of acting (Le Havre won FIPRESCI Award on International Film Festival FEST 2012 as well).

Le Havre contents political ironies, typical for Kaurismäki’s left political orientation, while Wilms claims that Kaurismäki set the movie in Le Havre for specific reasons due to Le Havre being the last Communist town in France. Maybe that is why Marcel’s last name (in film) is Marx.  And since being lefty, maybe he wanted to revive old dated French films with communist themes. According to our press talk, Aki and Wilms both love old French films, not the bourgeois that made nowadays.

Wilms dislikes conversations in modern French film such as: ”Je t’aime… Je ne t’aime pas… talk and talk, all so very quietly, thinking that this will pass just as it passed in American films…but no no…” said grumbling, waving hands, all so excited and overwhelmed Wilms to us. Wilms believe that Aki Kaurismäki was acutely aware of racism in France and the unrest of Parisian suburbs, which is probably the reason why he wanted to set story in France, specifically in Le Havre and to deal with the subject of immigration in France on his own way. There are many French intellectuals of today, of older generation, who believe that France was all about liberté and égalité and the French revolution in 60s and 70s, but now there is non of it enough now and that is also visible in modern French films dealing with petty little stories about ”couple disputes over their sex life,” explained Wilms. Due to that, Le Havre may be a cry in the desert, Wilms’ message to all of us is that goodness and solidarity is really needed in our time.

Kaurismäki’s new film Le Havre (Le Havre) is the story of Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms), a former writer and bohemian from Paris, who rejected metropolitan spleen with literary ambitions, arrived in Le Havre and began working as a shoeshine boy. He lives modestly with his wife Arlet that cares about him, while his free time he still spends in the local pub with images of what can be encountered only in Aki’s films. Meanwhile Arlet ends in hospital, while in his life enters a small African Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) target of immigrant services. Idrissa´s goal is to cross La Manche and go to London with his mother. Marcel confronts the system of Western society dehumanized and helps small Idrissa to get hold of the British mainland. Therefore, it's a touching and unpretentious warm human story made ​​by a left oriented humanist Kaurismäki supported by very likely same oriented French star Wilms.At the very end of our vivid conversation with André Wilms, we have found out that all great film workers, including film directors like Kaurismäki are notorious drunk. In addition, that Wilms would really like to work with Emir Kusturica in a future be.