In 1865, Timothee, a wanderer, arrives in a village in southern France pretending he is deaf and mute. There, he is struck by the beauty of a young woman, Josephine, and asks for hospitality at the house of Dr Hughes, her father. At dinner, he makes strange tricks inducing weird reactions in Josephine. The next day, he comes back when she is alone and makes her fall in a state of hypnotic lethargy before taking advantage of her. Overwhelmed by his powerful hypnotic gift, she follows him even though she seems to be disgusted and afraid of him. He takes her deep into the woods and continues to abuse her until he is arrested and tried. But how did Josephine accept to follow him? –Locarno Film Festival
Benoît Jacquot was born in Paris in 1947. He was the assistant to various directors before making his first film, L’Assassin Musicien in 1975. Fifteen films followed, such as Les enfants du placard, Les ailes de la colombe, La Ddsenchantée, La fille seule_, Le septième ciel, Pas de scandale, Sade, Tosca and Adolphe. He has worked with, among others, actors like Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani, Virginie Ledoyen, Fabrice Luchini and Daniel Auteuil. L’école de la chair was selected in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 and A tout de suite in the Un Certain Regard section in 2004. He has also directed numerous documentaries and features for television, such as Princesse Marie in 2003 with Catherine Deneuve. In the fall of 2004 he directed Werther by Massenet at the Royal Opera in London"s Covent Garden. He is finishing a screenplay based on a novel by Moravia and is preparing… read more
"It was Truffaut," noted Laura Barton in a profile for the Guardian last year, "who said she had to be unlocked; that there was in her
The 63rd Locarno Film Festival (site) opens tonight with the world premiere of Benoît Jacquot's Deep in the Woods. This'll be the "first