Band of brothers is a real blast!
New release movie My Brother’s Band stars major French actor Benjamin Lavernhe and follows two siblings separated by fate and reunited by music.
When My Brother’s Band released in France late last year it was a box-office hit, outperforming the first instalment of Wicked. It was also the resounding audience favourite at this year’s Australian French Film Festival and took first place in audience polls at last year’s UK French Film Festival and San Sebastian Film Festival.
Emmanuel Courcol’s story of two brothers is hard not to love and that’s partly because of the actors who play them – and, of course, the music.
Benjamin Lavernhe, a major star in France, plays Thibault, an internationally famous Paris conductor who falls ill with leukaemia. He needs bone marrow from a close relative, and his sister isn’t compatible as he discovers she is not his biological sister.
He discovers he was adopted. There is hope, however, as he has a biological brother, Jimmy (Pierre Lottin), a laddish school canteen employee who lives in working-class Lille and plays the trombone in a community brass band.
Initially when Jimmy receives the news of his brother, “Mr Posho”, he isn’t keen, though he eventually agrees to the transplant, which is deemed a success. Ultimately, the brothers bond over music, with Thibault encouraging Jimmy to pursue his musical passion as he had and even teaches him conducting.
‘I couldn’t imagine that it (conducting) was so exhausting and that there was a real impact on your body’
When we meet in Cannes, Lavernhe admits he comes from a posh background, “but not too posh”, as the son of a businessman father. Acknowledging he has had success as an actor, both in movies and on stage – he is a member of the hallowed Comedie-Francaise – he says he knew nothing about conducting.
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“I had to work a lot at that and had the help of many fine conductors,” Lavernhe notes. “I couldn’t imagine that it was so exhausting and that there was a real impact on your body, from head to toes. I was shaken by my emotions, too, because when you have 70 musicians playing live in front of you, I felt an emotion that I’m not used to, so it was intimidating for me.
“In the first scene when I’m sweating and I’m a bit skinny, skinnier than I am now, it was because it was very hard, and in fact I’m supposed to be ill.”
Interestingly, he received a tip from Cate Blanchett regarding the conducting, as he told an interviewer: “She was telling me Tár was not only the story of a conductor,” he says. “And our film was not only about a conductor.”
While the music and the working-class setting conjure memories of the 1996 British hit Brassed Off, of most importance here was the relationship between the brothers. Lavernhe bonded with rising star Lottin, who had made a strong impression in Francois Ozon’s recently released film, When Fall is Coming.
“What was fun is that Pierre is a very good musician, and I’m familiar with the guitar, piano and I play drums too,” Lavernhe explains. “So, we were surprised that we have both this link with music and with our characters. We are both a bit shy and we are two different animals (Lottin is the son of a baker). We had to discover each other during the shooting, and it was perfect for the roles.”
Lavernhe grew up in Poitiers in Western France listening to the music his parents loved. “It was more folk music like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Cat Stevens and Simon and Garfunkel,” he says. “I’m in love with that folk ’70s music.”
He now goes to more classical concerts and recently went to the Paris Philharmonie to see Bolero, which is the final concert in the film. “How it’s built, how it leads to a crescendo, it’s crazy, crazy.”
When he was a teenager Lavernhe used to go to a lot more live concerts and would travel to see artists like Paul McCartney twice and Stevie Wonder. Lavernhe has never been to Australia, a;though we’re on his radar.
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“It’s a dream for me to go there,” he says. “I like to surf in Biarritz, Brittany, Ile de Re and in Britain. I hope to surf in Australia too.”
Lavernhe moved to Paris at the age of 20 and studied theatre and journalism. He found his true vocation in acting and even met Lottin at acting school. When he was recruited into the Comedie-Francaise 12 years ago he couldn’t believe his luck.
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Benjamin Lavernhe in background, left.
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Pierre Lottin leading the brass band.
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Pierre Lottin and Benjamin Lavernhe.
“I used to go to the Comedie-Francaise to see shows,” he says. “And I was like, wow, it would be amazing, but not even in my wildest dreams did I think I would be accepted. It was a chance for me. I now feel very lucky to do both movies and theatre. I don’t want to choose, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be the same actor if I didn’t do theatre.”
At 41, Lavernhe is riding the crest of a movie wave with My Brother’s Band. He had a small role in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch before pretty much stealing Jeanne du Barry from Johnny Depp, as La Borde, the long-suffering valet of Depp’s King Louis XV.
What was it like working with Depp?
“He was very friendly with me,” he says. “We could speak of work and how to play, because he was playing in French. He was not like a big star, it was very easy and we laughed a lot, because he likes to joke around. But to see him dressed as Louis XV in Versailles,was like, am I on drugs? What am I doing here? It was so strange. It was a crazy adventure.”
Lavernhe had another French box-office hit with Abbe Pierre: A Century of Devotion, where he played the real-life titular character, Henry Groues, who was part of the French Resistance during WWII and went on to fight against poverty and for the homeless.
“I didn’t know him so well, but I discovered him through reading books for three months and I was dreaming of him every night,” Lavernhe recalls. “It was a chance to meet him, even for a movie.”
My Brother’s Band opens in cinemas on December 26 with previews December 12, 13 and 14.
Helen Barlow is a Paris-based Australian freelance journalist and critic. In 2019 she received the La Plume d’Or for her services to French cinema.