Augustin Dos Santos is a benign simpleton with a slight stammer. He's serious about his part-time job as a clerk for an insurance company, and he also acts, with small parts under his belt in commercials and experimental films. An agent finds his serious innocence perfect for a part as an odd bellman. Before his screen test, he volunteers for a day at a hotel. At his screen test, his inability to see the comic center of the scene makes him perfect for the part. Back at work, women co-workers tease him, and then he's off to the countryside to play a vet in a government film about myxomatosis in rabbits. Can anything break through his serious view of reality?
Acting
Sibertin-Blanc's stammer isn't acted—it's weaponized vulnerability.
Direction
Fontaine finds poetry in insurance forms and rabbit disease docs.
Director
Anne Fontaine
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Sibertin-Blanc actually stammers; Fontaine built the entire film around his natural speech pattern.
Part of 1990s French 'cinema du look' backlash—small, human stories against glossy spectacle. Anne Fontaine's debut before she went mainstream with 'Coco Before Chanel.'
FR
