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“I’m not sure if the people of France are ready to go to the cinema to see a movie about explosions and terrorism in Paris and people with, you know, masks on their faces,” a dubious Charlotte Le Bon says, her French-Canadian accent thick.
“I don’t know if I would even be ready. I can understand why the studios and producers feel – as we say – very cold about it.”
It’s an answer that surprises me. In eight years, never once have I interviewed a talent who has been so honest as to admit their film may not sit well with an entire country. But the 29-year-old actress – just waking up in Paris with an instant coffee (black, no sugar) – is right.
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Bastille Day, the blistering, high-octane, Taken-esque thriller tells the story of a reckless and troubled CIA agent, Sean (Idris Elba), and an American pickpocket named Michael (Richard Madden from Game Of Thrones). When the latter steals a handbag from the unsuspecting Zoe (Le Bon), he quickly realises it contains more than just 6mL of Chanel No. 5 and some Euro.
A bomb is set off, killing four people, and Michael – now an accidental pawn in a very dangerous game – realises Zoe isn’t just a French activist, she’s a bomb mule, one who panicked and had a last minute change of heart. “I was going to throw the bag in the river!” she wails. Sean uses both of them in a 24-hour breathless ride across Paris to take down the enemy; the French government. The “kinetic and in-your-face” shooting style with hand-held cameras means it’s fast. It’s frantic. And it’s… timely.
Filmed in the European Autumn of October 2014, the release of the film kept getting pushed back due to the social and political unrest in France. Director James Watkins was keen to shoot in unfamiliar parts of Paris. Of course the Sacre-Coeur at Montmartre makes a recognisable cameo but the rest is shot in suburbs just outside Paris, the Banlieues; a depressed and mostly-immigrant area on the northern outskirts of the city where unemployment is high and opportunities are scarce.
Ironically – and to Le Bon’s earlier point – Saint Denis, a suburb within the Banlieues, was the location of one of the coordinated terrorist attacks that took place just six months ago on 13 November 2015. This bomb signalled the first of three suicide bombers and mass shootings at cafes, restaurants and the Bataclan music theatre. 129 lives were lost that night and 368 injured in what was described as the deadliest attacks on France since World War Two. The mastermind behind the attacks was killed in Saint Denis in a police operation that residents describe as just as violent as the bombings and shootings themselves. So what does this mean for this film?
Here you have a city whose urban fabric was literally blown to pieces just six months ago and a film with a terrorist plotline set in the same neighbourhood. Still, it’s brilliant and worthwhile viewing.
“Charlotte really surprised me in the audition because there was a rawness and a vulnerability to her,” says Watkins. “She has no vanity, she’s very beautiful but she doesn’t care about any of that and she was happy to take all the make-up off and look terrible. She really embraced the raw side of Zoe.”
Credit: StudioCanal
I believe him. When I ask Le Bon where she’d recommend an Australian woman shop in Paris, she can’t tell me. She does though recommend a few bars (“Le Mary Celeste, Nanashi, Sardegna a Tavola…”). It’s this low maintenance, instant-coffee-drinking, non-French side that makes you like her. And you never know, maybe this is what Karl Lagerfeld liked about her too when he invited her to sit front row at Chanel Spring Summer 2016 show in January.
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Credit: StudioCanal
In the film, Zoe finds herself tangled in a relationship with a dangerous activist, the one who encouraged her to leave that handbag in a building. So in love, Zoe would do anything for him, but in real life, Le Bon takes a very different approach. “Zoe gets manipulated by this relationship, like probably every human being has at some point in their life,” she says. “She’s been manipulated in a way where she’s about to do things that maybe I think are not in her nature.
“My mother always taught me not to forget yourself for somebody else.”
“I remember when I was apart from my boyfriend for a while and I was doing drawings and taking little pictures and making mini montages for him, that’s the biggest thing I’ve done for love. Maybe I am too selfish to take a big risk like Zoe!”
I think we all are.
Credit: StudioCanal
March 2016 saw the city streets alight with flares and broken bottles being thrown by bandits in black bomber jackets and hoods. The crowds, of course, were protesting against the labour reforms across the nation.
Then, just this week, the Cannes film festival organisers employed 500 extra personnel to oversee the event amid a terror target concern. It is a very concerning time to release a film with this subject line.
But one thing to note. 70 million people in 200 countries took to Instagram to show their support for the French capital in 24 hours after the November attacks. They united with a hashtag #PrayForParis.
If there’s one thing the French wanted to show, it was that they weren’t afraid. In a polarising way, the deaths were confronting but the support was comforting. And if Cannes has proved anything it’s this: glasses will still be clinked, carpets will still be walked and cinema will still be celebrated.
Le Bon needn’t be worried. “Cold” they may feel but fearless the French will remain in spirit and with their one true love: the cinema.
Bastille Day is released on Blu-Ray, DVD and digital on August 18.
