Changing Mitts

All about Isabelle Huppert in Copacabana is scary: her extravaganza, her unpredictability, her carelessness, her outbursts, and her craziness. You do not want to be her daughter, her lover and her friend. And yet you end up being her daughter (Lolita Chammah, her real daughter in life), her lover, and her friend (lending her your car knowing very well that the car will never be returned). “Isabelle Huppert is in the movie very much like she is in life: full of humor, of life and energy although we are used to see her in very different roles. ” said the director Marc Fitoussi who was presenting his film for the second night in a row in New York as part of the New Directors New Films festival organized by the Film Society of the Lincoln Center. Copacabana is Fitoussi’s second movie as director and scriptwriter, and he is working on the next one between France and Italy with Sandrine Kimberlain.
Isabelle is looking for a job; she needs the money but never totally fits in: she is a free spirit, a resilient soul and her inner life always takes over. She finds a job as selling timeshare apartments in Ostende. In one of the scenes, Isabelle Huppert alias Babou is selling her commodities to English tourists arriving by ferry to Oostende. “Isabelle did it for real and got some “clients”. She is now proud to say around that if she cannot be an actress anymore she will make a living selling real estate!”
All about Isabelle Huppert is sophisticated, that extra red she is applying with sensuality to her lips, the mitts – red, pink or blue- she chooses according to her mood. “She put a lot of time in choosing her clothes” added Fitoussi. The red boots with a blue silk short dress, the green mini robe and the ubiquitous fur coat…


It is a movie about mother/daughter, about the power of a free spirited, resilient and beautiful woman.
Newdirectors.org
(Check out lfny.org for a possible screening at the Lycee Francais de New York in the coming weeks)