“Yokai”: Catherine Deneuve, magnificent specter

Friday night, it is with one of her greatest roles of recent years that Catherine Deneuve will preside over the prestigious 50th César Awards ceremony . Not that she still has anything to prove after more than 65 years of career, but what she delivers to us in "Yokai", in theaters this Wednesday, February 26, reminds us that at 81, Queen Catherine is still capable of surprising us and remains one of the greatest.

Signed by the great Singaporean filmmaker Éric Khoo, co-produced by France, mostly shot in Japan, "Yokai" begins in our country with a painful scene: Claire, a renowned singer, witnesses the euthanasia of her beloved dog. After which she flies to the Land of the Rising Sun, where she is adored, to give a farewell concert. Except that at the end of the show, she says goodbye for good, dying suddenly.

End of the story? No, a new beginning, because Claire immediately becomes a ghost. Wandering the streets of Tokyo, she will quickly realize that if humans cannot guess her presence, she can communicate with other ghosts stuck like her on Earth.

Among them is Yuzo, a great musician in the 70s who became a respected piano tuner, and who also recently passed away. However, it turns out that the old Japanese man was the French singer's biggest fan. Why are they stuck among the living? They will understand that they may have a mission to accomplish, namely to watch over the fate of Hayato, the son of Yuzo, a great director of animated films in decline who, very depressed, is drowning in alcohol. Our two ghosts will then, by inviting themselves invisibly into his car, undertake a journey...

A fantastic tale of great tenderness, marked by nostalgia and filled with music, "Yokai", despite its subject revolving around life after death, is practically, in 94 short minutes which do not spare the humor, a feel good movie, at the end of which one feels better.

It's the kind of film where all the characters smoke like chimneys and drink heavily - a little too much in Hayato's case -, constantly marveling at the beauty of the landscapes, the vintage cars, the surfboards from the 60s - that surround them, rejoicing every time they hear one of the songs from Claire's repertoire. On this last point, they have no problem: it's Jeanne Cherhal who signs these magnificent songs, which we seem to have known forever even though we are discovering them.

While the film's two main Japanese actors, Masaaki Sakai (Yuzo) and Yutaka Takenouchi (Hayato), deliver formidable performances, Catherine Deneuve 's score lights up "Yokai". As spectral as she is supposed to be, she displays a breathtaking presence, at first a little lost and then with great energy for a ghost, magnificent ― she seems twenty years younger than her age, full of nuances... A very great composition, infinitely sweet: thank you, Madame!