HIS BROTHER

Synopsis

Thomas is dying.

He accepts it. He's chosen to await his death here, in this house by the sea, the house of his childhood. I'm with him. It's still summer. I never realized people could die in the summer.

I thought death was something that always happened in winter, that it needed the cold, gray skies and bleakness. But I realize it can also do its deed in the sun, in broad daylight. I think that Thomas will welcome it in the broad daylight.

This winter, when he was hospitalized, I thought it would begin with a numbness in his arms and legs, that he'd have some kind of contraction, and then there would be an emergency, something sudden, something brutal. But not at all: instead there's a nonchalance, a kind of emptiness, a sluggishness, a renunciation under the summer heat.

Still, this foreseeable, expected death will bring about a cataclysm. It will affect all of our lives. It will modify them, force them into a new, unexpected direction. It will throw our lives out of whack, without any of us being able to fight it. This death will be the most important event.

My brother is dying.

Biography

HIS BROTHER is French director Patrice Chereau's ninth feature film, his latest since the internationally successful INTIMACY, winner of the 2001 Berlin Festival's Golden Bear, Silver Bear for Best Actress and Award for Best European Film.

Ale the English-language INTIMACY, SON FRERE marks Chereau's return to French-language film. Chereau's historical epic QUEEN MARGOT starring Isabelle Adjani, debuted at the 1994 Cannes Festival after the director spent years researching and adapting Dumas' classic novel. His 1983 film THE WOUNDED MAN created a stir at the Cannes Festival because of its frank sexual portrait of a troubled young man caught up in the sordid world of a train station. Also presented at the Cannes Festival, 1998's THOSE WHO LOVE ME CAN TAKE THE TRAIN told the story of several persons traveling by train to an artist friend's funeral.

Chéreau made his film directorial debut with 1974's FLESH OF THE ORCHID, adapted from James Hadley Chase's novel and starring Charlotte Rampling. His second film, 1978's JUDITH THERPAUVE, starred Simone Signoret defending a small-town newspaper in financial peril. For his 1987 comedy-drama HOTEL DE FRANCE, Chéreau worked with his then-students from the Theatre des Amandiers: Laurent Grevill, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Vincent Perez, Marianne Denicourt, Agnes Jaoui and Bruno Todeschini, among others. Chéreau was director of the prestigious Theatre des Amandiers (Nanterre) for nearly a decade during the 80s. 1988's "Hamlet" and several stagings of the works of Bernard-Marie Koltès are among Chéreau's numerous successes since he began directing for the stage in the mid-60s, His most recent Paris production is Racine's "Phaedra" with Dominique Blanc (January 2003, still running).

Chéreau has been equally successful as a director of opera, notably associated with the works of Alban Berg, such as his 1979 staging of "Lulu" and 1992's "Wozzeck". Chéreau's 16-hour 1976 production of Wagner's Ring in Bayreuth (conductor: Pierre Boulez) has become legendary.

Chéreau also occasionally acts in films, most recently in Tonie Marshall's NEAREST TO HEAVEN, starring Catherine Deneuve and William Hurt. His other acting credits include Andrzej Wajda's DANTON, Claude Berri's LUCIE AUBRAC, Michael Mann's THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, Michael Haneke's WOLFZEIT and playing Napoleon in Youssef Chahine's ADIEU BONAPARTE.