La Baleine

a film by Sylvère Petit
with Sergi Lopez and Izïa Higelin

in collaboration with Les Films d’Ici Méditerranée, Iota Production et Imagic Telecom

Synopsis

Autumn, 1985.

A storm erupts in the Mediterranean Sea. A village is devastated, its crops laid to waste. A dead whale is found on the beach, stranded by the waves. The town authorities announce the carcass is carrying diseases, and that they will dynamite it. With his tractor, grape-harvesting trailer, and three kitchen knives, Corbac, a sick and misanthropic winemaker, tries to save the skeleton of the whale from this grisly fate. 

Day and night, the largest of Earth’s creatures is cut apart piece by piece in front of the village church, the school, its distillery; creating ripples of fear and anger amongst the tightly knit villagers. They know Corbac won’t stop until he is done. 

The villagers are left with no choice but to call his estranged daughter Mathilde, the only person who might be able to convince him to see reason.

Loosely adapted from the real life story of Jean-Louis and Patricia Fabre

Director’s Note

The Promise
“Take care of the animals, humans aren't worth it.”

If I am to be completely honest, it is pretty obvious that I was an antisocial child. And this promise that I made to myself was reinforced every day, four times a day, on my way to school. On that road, I collected butterflies that had been hit by cars, squashed praying mantises, eviscerated snakes, squirrels, and occasionally a neighbour's cat or a dog I’d befriended.

That road was paradoxical. It was the Grim Reaper and at the same time it offered me some of my most beautiful discoveries. The beauty of an elytron, the pattern of a cicada wing, the blue skin of a lizard, the scales of a snake. Thanks to car tyres, I discovered a heart, viscera, a skull, haemolymph...

Even though my wrath towards humans was constantly growing, the road to school was never dreary. it was nothing but a treasure trove of joyful finds. Ever since then, death and internal organs have never been synonymous with fear or disgust for me. On the contrary, they have been something which have opened doors to the mysteries of life and poetry.

Characters

Corbac, our protagonist, is a monomaniacal recluse who becomes an alcoholic after the death of his wife Ariane. A bearded, rugged figure in his late fifties, he shares a special connection with the birds that cohabit his farmhouse, particularly the golden owl Blanche and the crow Lazare. Corbac obsessively preserves biological artifacts such as fossils, feathers and skeletons in the jars that clutter his attic. He is battling an unknown sickness and is psychologically perturbed as a result of his estrangement from his daughter Mathilde. Corbac is stubborn and solitary - he lives on the fringes of the village, and rarely partakes in community gatherings. Corbac resembles Jim Harrison, with the poetic appeal of Michel Simon, and will be played by Sergi Lopez.

Mathilde, the estranged daughter of Corbac, is a bubbly woman in her thirties. She dresses in an 80s’ aesthetic with bright makeup, presenting herself as cheerful and high spirited. Mathilde prefers to live outside the village, keeping a distance from her father’s melancholy. At first, she refuses to meet Corbac, but after the villagers plead for her help, she acquiesces. She determinedly continues her father’s efforts in preserving the whale after his suicide.

Blanche is a small golden owl that lives with Corbac in his farmhouse. She is a gentle and motherly figure who is brooding three eggs in her nest in the attic. Blanche deftly and gracefully swoops through the film’s landscapes, and her premonition of the storm in many ways foreshadows the unraveling of the village’s social fabric.

Lazare is a watchful black crow that lives with Corbac. He keeps a protective eye on the property and often warns Corbac when strangers approach. 

César, the village priest, is a tall bespectacled man in his early sixties. He is sharp and put together, and his church sermons function as a gathering point for the village to regroup in the aftermath of the storm. Although he tries to stop Corbac, César remains calm and collected, even as some villagers are perturbed by Corbac’s apparent descent into madness. He is well respected by his community,

Raoul is a stockily-built winery worker who lives in a wealthy property with his wife Cathie. He is very quick to anger and grows increasingly antagonistic towards Corbac when his attempts to stop Corbac fall on deaf ears. The epitome of the village hunter, Raoul feels superior to other living beings, and enjoys exercising a fantasized power of domination over nature. He kills Blanche as a nuisance to the village, much like the taxidermied foxes he displays in his lodge

Toinou is a gawky and disheveled young man, always ready with a tongue-in-cheek comment or a mischievous joke. He views Corbac’s actions with a quizzical curiosity and is the first to aid Mathilde as she continues her father’s work after his death.

Gisèle is the owner of the town bar, where the villagers gather every evening to gossip about the day’s happenings. She is middle aged, but has heavy and tired eyes. Gisèle empathizes with Corbac’s plight and psychological torment. She rushes to help him during his tractor accident and to call Mathilde when the villagers feel they have no other option.

Couille Molle is a skinny delinquent dog who Corbac finds on the beach after the storm, his head stuck in a tin can. He quickly befriends Corbac, becoming an emblem of simple loyalty - barking erratically at those who threaten his companion and jumping in joy whenever Corbac or Mathilde continue cutting the whale apart. 

Jo is a plump sixteen year old who works at the grape harvesting unit, who provides comic relief with his rather clueless questions.

A group of children come across Corbac one day while playing at the beach and help him cut apart the whale. One of them is Raoul’s son, much to his father’s chagrin.

The film takes place in a small country village in the Occitane region of Southern Mediterranean France. We paint this picture with a cast of simple villagers who begin to treat Corbac as an outcast when he disrupts their tightly knit social balance.

Cinematography & Visual Aesthetic
Inspired by the cinematography of J. Campion's The Piano and the western touch of Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning, we oscillate between meditations on the inner states of our characters and wide shots of the landscapes they inhabit.

The contrast between hierarchical Judeo-Christian society and the uncontrolled nature it seeks to dominate is explored in a film like Martin Scorsese's Silence. Other references include Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's Leviathan, Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse and the reimagined treatment of the western genre in Rodrigo Sorogoyen's As Bestas. 

Reference Imagery
The vineyards of southern France would stereotypically evoke the romantic cinema of Marcel Pagnol, Robert Guédiguian, or caricatural representations in American cinema (Catch Me If You Can by Steven Spielberg, Magic in the Moonlight by Woody Allen, etc.).

Conversely, Sylvère Petit chooses to construct an oppressive and sombre reality through a dark juxtaposition between his protagonist and the rest of the village. Through expansive shots, he creates space for landscapes and characters alike. As such, the Western offers us a frame of aesthetic reference

Impact Campaign

To support the film’s distribution and impact campaign, we will also create a series of cultural and multidisciplinary pieces entitled  “La Constellation de La Baleine”, which include: 

• A “making-of” book
• An archive film about the true story that inspired the screenplay
• A documentary about human-animal interaction: Vivant Parmi Les Vivants by Sylvère Petit
• An eco-volunteering initiative called "Les Baleines Solidaires"
• Reassembly of the skeleton used in the film
• A scientific study
• A traveling photographic exhibition
• A comic book adapted from the screenplay
• Communication materials

Thanks to the support of the CANOPÉ network, a public operator of the French Ministry of National Education, an educational dossier for La Baleine has been developing since September 2023. We are confident that this will be complete by the film's release (2026), and will distribute it via European educational networks. Our networks across the French Institutes, the Alliances Françaises, the AEFE (Agency for French Education Abroad), and the Laïque Mission are avenues we will explore for this distribution. 

Moreover, we have multiple scientific partnerships on this project. The first is with the Observatory of Marine Mammals and Birds, coordinator of the national network of cetacean strandings: PELAGIS. In addition to helping us monitor the stranding of a fin whale during the filming of the movie, PELAGIS is partnering with the film for scientific purposes. The data collected during the autopsy of the whale during filming is intended to be disseminated nationally and internationally. The second partner is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Several teams of researchers will be present during the filming of La Baleine. Thanks to the stranded specimen, they will have privileged access to the autopsy of the cetacean. These researchers will analyze the process of cutting, preparation, and reassembly of the skeleton of the whale. This research will lead to a concurrent lecture series scheduled alongside the release of the film.

These will be financed and created separately to the film with our academic and creative partners.