THE TALK OF CANNES

Spotlight

The first time Bérénice Bejo appears in The Past, you flash back to her Oscar-nominated role as Peppy Miller in the silent film The Artist: she is on the other side of a soundproof glass wall in the Paris airport, mouthing hello to her estranged husband (Ali Mosaffa), who has flown in from Iran to sign divorce papers. Aside from that clever nod to Bejo's previous role in which she utters not a word, her character, Marie, has plenty to say as the volatile mother whose affair with the owner of a dry-cleaning shop (played by Tahar Rahim) has possibly fatal consequences. The Past is Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's first film in French and, like his acclaimed A Separation, deals with broken love and its ripple effects across generations. Bejo's performance dazzled the Cannes Film Festival last spring (she won the bestactress award), and it is no wonder she famously gets along with directors: she is the daughter of Argentinean filmmaker Miguel Bejo and the wife of Michel Hazanavicius, who won the best-director Oscar for The Artist. Does Bejo have a favorite director? Put it this way: she spent the fall in the country of Georgia filming The Search, in which she plays a woman working in human rights during the Chechen conflict. It will be her third film with her husband.

JIM KELLY

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