Julien Gosselin Les Particules élémentaires

based on the novel by Michel Houllebecq

Lack of insight? Cultural rift? Or simply a lapse in time? Though Les Particules élémentaires had already been adapted for the stage in Germany and Holland, immediately following its publication, the novel was yet to come to the attention

of any French director. The waiting came to an end with 27 year-old Julien Gosselin, an avid reader of Houellebecq and fan of stylistic challenges. He has been able to measure up the dramatic potential of this clairvoyant work, which condenses 50 years of cultural history. The book features truculent anti-heros (Michel and Bruno are half-brothers, representing two shades of modern-day solitude), collective scenes with strong comic potential (cf. a “wellness” workshop for exalted hippies), and an archeology of liberalism-associated violence (including ageist tyranny, and the annexation of sexuality and desire by market forces)... Thus, motivations for adapting the work abounded. However, what attracted Julien Gosselin and his Si vous pouviez lécher mon cœur collective, a group of actors which had already aroused interest with their stagings of works by Fausto Paravidino (Gênes 01) and Anja Hilling (Tristesse Animal Noir), was the variety of registers and narrative modes. In their adaptation, the collective has brought rhythmic inventiveness, collective vitality, and great sensibility in terms of montage. We are left in no doubt that Les Particules élémentaires, this drama of the libidos, and manners-based comedy of disillusionment, is above all an ode to the figure of turn-of-century man: profoundly derisory, ridiculous in the extreme, and infinitely moving.