Matt Damon, in love with Marseille.
Matt Damon he says that if he were younger and had to move to France, he would live in Marseilles. At the orders of Tom McCarthy, the actor shot in the summer of 2019 A Question of Blood (theatrical release August 13), in which he plays a roughneck from Oklahoma. A deep midwestern who works in the oil industry in a suburb eaten by unemployment and poverty, he survives locked in a world of short horizons until a family misfortune forces him to cross the Atlantic. His daughter (played by Abigail Breslin) She has been sentenced in a Marseille prison, accused of killing her partner and her roommate. Damon as Bill Baker decides to go visit her, bring her clothes and some personal things.
Arriving in Marseille, the lost in translation thing falls short. This American, who we would all judge as a Trump voter (he himself does not deny it, he only says that he cannot vote because he was in jail), even with difficulty says “merci”. He goes with the "yes, ma'am" ahead and the head lowers, he feels strange, but stands out even if he doesn't want to: his cap, his workman's boots, his goatee.
He does not go unnoticed.
"The idea was that Bill had probably never traveled outside the United States, much less to a place as little known to him as Marseilles," he explains. Phil Messina, art director of the film, in charge of finding the locations and transforming some of them. The cosmopolitan and effervescent Marseille is completely distant and foreign to him. The director and screenwriter Tom McCarthy (Oscar winner for Spotlight) chose it on purpose for her. He wanted something opposite to that town in Oklahoma (Stillwater, as the original title in English) and besides, he had fallen in love with the port city, first through the novels of Jean-Claude Izzo and then, in person, looking for a place to put the script that he had started 10 years ago and that he resumed in 2016 with the arrival of Trump to power, horrified by the polarization of his country and the world.
The light of the Côte d'Azur.
A question of blood, in fact, wrapped in a plot of noir thriller and family drama sends a message of empathy and open-mindedness that is achieved by traveling, leaving home. Damon doesn't play another Bourne. The film is a mirror in front of our today. A metaphor that McCarthy also exploited in his way of shooting. “In Oklahoma, we use dollies and mounts, and other lenses are used,” says the director. "I wanted to shoot in a certain way so that the weight and stagnation of Bill's life in Oklahoma could be felt." Fixed, closed shots that convey his loneliness and his closedness. “Then we get to Marseille and I want her to feel the energy of the camera in hand and the vibrancy of that city. She serves to differentiate the two worlds we are dealing with,” he ends.
"Stillwater is flat, very spacious and calm." Instead, Marseille rises from the sea, it is complicated, noisy, with faces from many different countries. And she has a light. That light. “Part of the reason I love Marseille is the light; There's a reason the south of France has attracted painters for centuries. We wanted to reflect that”, justifies the filmmaker who, so that the French did not jump on him, counted as co-authors of the script with two heavyweights of French cinema: Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré (Jacques Audiard regulars).
The alleys of Marseille.
Marsella is not just another character, she is the protagonist. She is in the foreground, as Bill (Damon) moves through her, trying to keep a low profile, working among other immigrants, seeking justice for her daughter. It is not a touristic, idealized Marseille, it is a very real, vivid and realistic Marseille.
Among the places we walked hand in hand with the actor: the suburb of Kalliste, a neighborhood in the north of the city of huge run-down blocks of flats where different immigrant cultures live. “Once you were there, in the thick of it, it was like a world unto itself,” says Messina. “There was a tower that they were preparing to demolish, so they were throwing things out of the windows, like beds and furniture. It was a devastating environment to find oneself in. What struck Tom and me the most the first couple of times we went to see it is that there is a level of normalcy during the day that changes completely at night. It is a community. It is multidimensional. Tom didn't want to fall into the idea that it's a horrible place where only bad things happen. There are also good people there."
Matt Damon and Tom McCarthy.
If there are prejudices, they fly in both directions in the film: against the French liberal cliché that she plays Camille Cotin and against American safety Matt Damon. Question of blood is, precisely, that slap to end prejudice and judgment. And there is no better place to do it than in Marseille. In its hot streets and in its tumultuous Stade Velodrome, home of Olympique de Marseille.
“Marseille is an incredibly beautiful city and then you walk out of it, and you find yourself the Calanques, which are like some amazing canyons that the water has carved out over the years – where Bill and his daughter make up,” says Matt Damon. "I hope the film feels like an ode to Marseille, because it is a truly special place."
Matt Damon and Camille Cottin, the rich face of Marseille.