Bruno Reidal

In November 2018, Vincent Le Port revealed that it took him 5 years to write the screenplay for his debut feature film, which would be titled Bruno Reidal. It is based on the true story of a 17-year-old peasant who, in 1905, murdered and beheaded a 13-year-old child in the forest bordering the village of Raulhac (Cantal).[8][9] Le Port first discovered the story in 2011 in Stéphane Bourgoin's book Serial Killers. Le Port explained: "The news story and the person of Bruno immediately fascinated me, as well as the time period and unusual geographical location, the atrocity of the murder which contrasted with the image that everyone had of Bruno (that of a good student, pious, shy, weak), and also a rather inexplicable paradox, namely that the assassin apparently had no remorse, but that he had nevertheless given himself up to the authorities.[10][7]

In developing the film's screenplay, Vincent Le Port performed archival research, diving into the papers of Alexandre Lacassagne, a forensic physican who founded a school of modern criminology in Lyon.[11] The real name of Bruno Reidal, which is a pseudonym coined by Lacassagne,[11] was Jean-Marie Bladier.[9] Lacassagne interviewed Bladier and took his testimony.[11] Le Port focused heavily on the memoirs Bladier wrote in jail,[7] which totaled around 100 pages. Approximately seven or eight pages were used in the film, which was further reduced during the production process. Le Port edited the pages to cut out repetition, and was forced to remove some elements that would have been too expensive to stage.[12]

Le Port and casting director Bahijja El Amrani spent months 8 months searching for the three actors needed to portray Bruno at different ages.[13] They held a casting session for non-professional actors, as they preferred to "find them in local, rural surroundings." However, the session resulted in the casting of only the youngest of the boys, Alex Fanguin, who plays Bruno at the age of six.[12] Fanguin was chosen because he "brought the harshness of this end of the 19th century" and had a "singular and enigmatic gaze." Le Port described Roman Villedieu, who plays Bruno at age 10, as the most "contemporary" of the three.[13]

Le Port became acquainted with Dimitri Doré, who plays Bruno at age 17, through the actor Jean-Luc Vincent, who portrays the doctor Lacassagne. Vincent had seen Doré perform in a play, and advised Le Port to consider him for the role. Le Port was impressed with Doré for being "exactly the same height and weight as the real Bruno Reidal, his high-pitched voice was exactly what I had in mind, the fact that he had never acted in the cinema appealed to me."[13][12]

Filming took place between 10 July and 21 August 2019,[6] between the communes of Campouriez, Thérondels (Aveyron) and Jabrun (Cantal), as well as Autun (Saône-et-Loire), Magnac-Laval, Montrol-Sénard and the forest of Saint-Léger-la-Montagne (Haute-Vienne).[14][15] Filming took place again in Aveyron, between 11 and 20 December 2019,[16] including in Rodez and at the Saint-Sauveur monastery in Villefranche-de-Rouergue.[2][17]

The film's soundtrack features works by composer Olivier Messiaen, including "Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus".[18] According to La Libre, Messiaen's compositions "reinforce the feeling of mystery and unease as we enter the mind of the character."[1]

Bruno Reidal received an average rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars on the French website AlloCiné, based on 27 reviews.[24]

Reviewing the film following its Cannes premiere, Luc Chessel of Libération called it a "pretty incredible film: first, with a diabolical frankness, which strikes as mastery and commands our admiration, but also, as it progresses, reveals itself much more devious than it seems."[11] Voici described it as a "gripping, awkward and masterful debut feature." Sophie Avon of Sud Ouest wrote that the film has a "sharp beauty that mixes the savagery of the act and the splendor of nature, the atrocity of murder and the fragility of childhood."[25] The film's staging was praised by Stéphanie Belpêche of Le Journal du Dimanche,[26] Thomas Bauras of Première[27] and by Emily Barnett of Marie Claire, the latter of whom wrote, "The pictorial and ultra-precise staging dazzles with its virtuosity."[28] Marie José Sirach of L'Humanité wrote, "There is something fascinating in Vincent Le Port's filming. The beauty of this filmed primitive nature evokes the works of master painters. The compositions of groups, within the school, the family farm, the reconstructions of the black-and-white postcards of yesteryear [...] come as close as possible to the condition of the peasants of that time."[29]

The film was panned by The Playlist's Kevin Jagernauth, who criticized the character development of Bruno: "There is a certain horror about an otherwise banal adolescent who is capable of such harm, but Le Port's film is never insightful enough to draw that out, or rich enough to penetrate beyond its surface layer. It leaves us with a criminal portrait that, for all of its carefully selected hyperfocus, completely fails to see the big picture."[18] Olivier Delcroix of Le Figaro wrote, "Cold, fetishistic, tortured, this stiff psychiatric study is boring to the highest degree."[30]