In January 2022, Gaspard Ulliel died in a skiing accident. Jérémie Renier then lost his best friend that day. What follows, the bereaved actor describes without dramatization, but with a frankness that touches: the withdrawal from cinema, the depression as well as the feeling of having to find another meaning in his life. “I felt like I didn’t want it anymore.”, he said.
He is still completely shaken by the tragedy when he comes across, by chance, an interview with Loury Lag, a French explorer familiar with extreme territories. A like, a response and a book sent afterwards, something is formed between two men who everything separates a priori, but who sensitivity brings together. “I wrote to him saying that it seemed to me that we had something to do together, that I was going through a very complicated mourning“says the actor. Loury Lag then offers to take him to the Arctic for his next mission and Jérémie Renier says yes without really understanding what that implies.
For three months, he follows the explorer. Fourteen days on a hostile ice floe, in climatic conditions which leave no room for dodging. “I probably needed confront myself with something bigger than me“he recognizes. On the snow, something happens that he hadn’t anticipated: “It is by placing one foot on the snow that I saw an invisible bond with my friend.” Gaspard Ulliel is never mentioned in the documentary and yet he is everywhere. The physical experience was brutal and the words he chooses to describe it leave no doubt about it.
“We have no choice: if we stop, we die”
The actor, who already had to gain 25 kilos for a role, had not anticipated the intensity of what the Arctic was going to inflict on him. “There were magical moments, but this trip was also a lot of physical suffering“he confides. The harshness of the weather conditions is such that we never relax our vigilance; losing a glove means risking seeing your hand freeze. At one point, it is said that the outcome will be one or the other: “Either I will grow from this, or I will disappear.” His body took a year to recover from this expedition.
But it is precisely this extreme confrontation that produced something unexpected. In the Arctic, there is nothing to escape from, no noise, no distractions, no terrain other than yourself to set your eyes on. “In the Arctic, there is nothing that allows you to escape from yourself“he said. For someone who was grieving so heavily, it was both unbearable and necessary.
A journey that takes him to the second film directed by Jérémie Renier
From this experience was born From one world to anotherdocumentary directed by Jérémie Renier himself, his second film after Carnivores in 2018. He chose to entrust the camera to Fabien Ruyssen, his childhood friend, “because I needed to be confident to open up”. The result is an intimate object, which speaks of Loury Lag as much as him and Gaspard Ulliel without ever naming it. Since filming, Jérémie Renier has rediscovered the taste for acting and has notably filmed the series Eldorado for Arte. He also launched the collective CUT ! or Cinema united for the transition pour push the industry towards more sustainable practices. Projects that say something about what this trip left him with: “The loss of my friend taught me this: the bond we weave with each other is what we have most precious.”
