The preposterous making of a profane documentary – Technologist

Gérard Depardieu and Yann Moix push luggage carts through a Beijing airport. The actor and the writer are looking for the counter of the North Korean airline Air Koryo. Depardieu has a knee problem. He is placed in a wheelchair. He also has a digestion problem. “I sent gas strings, worthy of a great German,” he announces, laughing profusely, as he is wheeled to the plane. “My little blue rabbit,” he says to the stewardess who welcomes him on board. He takes advantage of the flight to examine her: “Look at that little one in tights… I could undress her quietly and massage her a little. Oh, massage her little knees…”

So begins a film that everyone is talking about without ever having seen it. A feature-length film never released in cinemas, but which has already left its mark on the history of French cinema in a strange way, by provoking the fall of one of its most legendary actors, and in the process revealing the divisions of a milieu fractured by the #MeToo wave.

In September 2018, Moix, a writer, columnist and filmmaker, brought Depardieu to North Korea. A film crew accompanied them. The North Korean regime was celebrating its 70^th birthday, and so was the actor. The documentary recounting his visit to Kim Jong-un was set to be called 70. For five years, the film lay dormant in the hard drives of its producer, the company Hikari. It was shared only among professionals and those close to Moix. A source who wished to remain anonymous allowed Le Monde to view it.

On December 7, the investigative TV show Complément d’Enquête broadcast excerpts from the rushes as part of a wider story into Depardieu. In it, the audience discovered that “cinema’s sacred monster,” according to the enduring cliché, was more monstrous than sacred whenever he crossed paths with women, with his obscene jokes, invasive stares and bestial grunts. In these images from North Korea, there were no sexual assaults, but there were enough elements to give credibility to the portrait of the actor drawn up by the women accusing him of rape and sexual assault, sparking indignation.

A complicated launch

70 has been much talked about since the investigative program went on air, but it was actually the extension of a much larger project. After several love affairs with French women of Korean heritage, Moix developed a fascination for the peninsula. So much so that, in the early 2010s, he began directing Korea. This project would be his third feature film, following his hit comedy Podium (2004) and Cinéman (2009).

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