Laurent Cantet, the beloved French filmmaker who directed 2008 Cannes Palme d’Or winner “The Class,” died in April 2024 of cancer before he could see what would have been his last movie to completion.
That film, “Enzo,” is now directed by his friend of 40-plus years, Robin Campillo, the French director best known for his 2017 Cannes Grand Prize winner “BPM,” one of the most poignant movies ever made about the HIV/AIDS crisis (and about queer identity in general). It’s a summery coming-of-age affair that you might mistake on its surface for something like “Call Me by Your Name,” but this Cannes Directors’ Fortnight premiere is more about the title character’s inner, class-inflicted conflicts and torments.
The 16-year-old Enzo (discovery Eloy Pohu) defies his moneyed bourgeois family’s expectations and lifestyle — they’re living in a summer villa shut out entirely from the outside world in the South of France, once their automatic driveway gate closes — by starting a masonry apprenticeship. That’s hardly what his intellectual parents (Pierfrancesco Favino and Élodie Bouchez) had hoped for their son. But he begins to question himself even more upon meeting Vlad (Maksym Slivinskyi, also a first-timer), a Ukrainian construction worker who opens up his world to unexpected possibilities — and a secret crush that opens the doorway to Enzo’s burgeoning sexuality.
Campillo told IndieWire that his collaborations with Cantent over the years “was a friendship of cinema … we were always sharing very deeply about the characters, the situations,” he said. “When [Laurent] realized he was very sick and in a very dangerous situation, it was very severe. He knew it was difficult to cure. I proposed to him to do what we were doing 10 years ago, to work together on the script, the preparation of the film, the casting, the shooting, and the editing. I would be all the way [with him] as a personal assistant. If he became too fragile, I could take control of the shooting. We chose together the four protagonists, and when he said to Eloy and Maksym they were chosen for the film, I think he died the week after. It was very quick.”
Campillo said, “When he was at the hospital, I told him I would be very happy to complete the film. We talked about, of course, I couldn’t do a film the way he would do it. I said I would try my best to make the best film I could. You cannot be the brain of someone, even though I I knew him so much. It was a real pleasure to do this film. It was not sad at all. I think it would have been more difficult for me or more sad if we had stopped everything. It would have been a real death, a sudden death to me. That’s how we worked, with the producers, we decided to go on. And Laurent’s wife, Isabelle told him that she wanted to see the film, so that’s why we [continued].”
As for the actors, Campillo said, “Maksym was the first Ukrainian guy we met. He’s doing exactly the same work that he’s doing in the film. When we saw him, we didn’t see in fact a worker; we saw an actor. He has such a life in his eyes. He’s so strong and he’s, at the same time, very young because he’s 24. He’s very masculine so he looks older, but he’s not. He’s very close to Eloy in a way.”
And actor Pohu, who plays Enzo, Campillo said, “Laurent was not so fond of Eloy at first, but me, there was a mystery in this guy I thought was so close to the character. He’s not like a teenager who is angry with everything, who likes to argue with his father; he’s more secretive. For me, he’s an enigma. Even after doing this film with him, I don’t know him very well, and I was amazed by the fact that he was something like a child, he has a baby face, and at the same time, he’s [trying to become a man] … I told Laurent, maybe he’s not a good actor now, but he’s so much the character. I’m going to work with him without you, and film it, and show you.”
“Enzo” opens the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight on Wednesday, May 15. It is currently seeking distribution, and mk2 is handling sales. Watch an exclusive first clip in the video above.
