Two of Sylvain Chomet’s feature-length animated films—The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville, 2003) and The Illusionist (L’Illusionniste, 2010)—are often voted the best in global cinema surveys. Both recently made it to Indiewire’s list of the best animated films of the 21st century.
His third, A Magnificent Life (Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol), a biopic of the French writer, playwright and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol, is marked by the characteristic, vivid visual style, whimsicality and wistfulness of his previous films and has some stunningly realised sequences.
Using a unique narrative technique, of Pagnol encountering his childhood self, it captures his life in all its expanse and glory—his early years as an English teacher, his move from Marseille to Paris, his innings in theatre and becoming one of the greatest French playwrights, his fascination for cinema but the hatred for silent films, the eventual embracing of motion pictures after the arrival of sound and the setting up his own studio in Marseille.
It premiered in the Special Screenings section of the Cannes Film Festival and recently competed in the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
Chomet spoke to The New Indian Express/Cinema Express on why he chose to tell the story of Pagnol, what went into its making, how animation trumps over live action when it comes to biopics, about films on films and how artificial intelligence can never take over the art and craft and the artist.
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