FRANCE – PARIS
In September, Arthur Harari is doubly in the spotlight: as an actor in Cédric Kahn’s Le Procès Goldman, and as a co-writer of Anatomie d’une Chute, Palme d’Or at the last Cannes Film Festival, directed by his partner Justine Triet. Portrait of a discreet Swiss Army knife of French cinema.
Looking at him, you’re never sure whether he was top of the class or a rambunctious pupil. He has the shifty look of an artist in the moonlight, but when you talk to him, he’s voluble and precise in his thinking. Everyone who knows him seems to agree: he’s a brilliant individual. No wonder Nicolas Pariser thought of him for a small role as an enarque in his short film La République (2010). This will be the first foray in front of the camera for the man who has already made three short films as a director. He enjoyed the exercise, and Arthur Harari wore the actor’s hat more than a dozen times – usually in small roles in buddy films. It runs in the family: his grandfather, Clément Harari, was a prolific stage and screen actor, seen in Jean Delannoy’s Notre Dame de Paris (1956) and as an old rabbi in Radu Mihaileanu’s Train de Vie (1998).
This time, Arthur Harari is no longer playing a small role. In Cédric Kahn’s Le Procès Goldman, he plays Georges Kiejman, the famous lawyer for Pierre Goldman (played by Arieh Worthalter), a far-left activist accused of murder in 1976. A cerebral, restrained role, tailor-made for the man who has quietly carved out a place for himself as a key player in a demanding cinema. Together with his partner Justine Triet, they wrote the story of a couple caught up in the justice system in Anatomie d’une chute, having previously collaborated on Sybil (2019). As a filmmaker, Arthur Harari made his name with the thriller Diamant Noir in 2016. This family drama set in the diamond milieu of Antwerp received rave reviews in the press, and earned Niels Schneider a César for Best Male Actor. Six years later, his audacious second feature confirmed his special place in French cinema. With Onoda, 10,000 Nights in the Jungle, Arthur Harari shot a film in Cambodia, entirely in Japanese, about the astonishing and terrible story of a World War II soldier who didn’t know the war was over. The philosophical odyssey of this lonely, anachronistic hero is reminiscent of the great classic American films. The breathtaking photography is no mean feat. It’s by Tom Harari.
Another Harari, rare and talented like his brother – and let’s not forget the third, Lucas, a brilliant comic book artist. A sibling whose talent is one to watch.
Pierre Charpilloz
Le Procès Goldman by Cédric Kahn, in cinemas on September 27
Anatomie d’une chute by Justine Triet, in cinemas since August 23