In 2021, against the backdrop of a pandemic, 14-time César-nominated French film actor Daniel Auteuil released his first album at the age of 71. The eponymous title track, “Si vous m’aviez connu” (lovely clip with Fanny Ardent), gleaned from the algorithms, appealed to us, but not enough to get to the bottom of it. Probably because of the damned prejudice: “Well, another movie star wants to sing.
But then a very solid song about two men who love the same woman, performed with the hyper-talented Gaëtan Roussel (Louise Attaque), “Les mêmes larmes,” titillated our curiosity about the famous actor’s second album, Si tu as peur, n’aie pas peur de l’amour, which came out in March 2023.
Of course, you’ll have to adjust to Daniel Auteuil’s vocal delivery and musical approach, which veers between French chanson, kitsch variété and rock, with touches of reggae, rumba and folk. But it’s well worth the effort.
If we immediately recognize Roussel’s catchy signature, omnipresent on the album he co-produced and co-wrote, it’s with a certain joy that we discover a universe at once melancholic, solid and nostalgic, like a bottle of Johnny Walker black savoured on a round moon evening.
Distilling witty lyrics that manage to evoke as much as possible, while demonstrating an economy of words (“Les petites coupures”), Auteuil evokes past years, the Algeria of his childhood (“La contre-allée”), decomposed loves, the passage of time, illegitimate childhood, as in the very touching “Le fils de Rose”.
If you’re not too put off by the female choruses typical of a certain era of French variété, you’ll be charmed, even bewitched, by the artist’s approach, which, singing with a certain despair, will remind older listeners of the famous scene in which her character Ugolin declared his love for Emmanuelle Béart in the classic Manon des sources (1986).
For wounded hearts and other old souls, Daniel Auteuil will be performing in Quebec at the end of April 2024.
