コラム：パリジェンヌの東京映画レポート2 - 第4回

第4回：「ソルト」アンジェリーナ・ジョリー来日会見へ

Angelina Jolie is a woman who doesn’t need to be introduced anymore. This week, the American actress came to Tokyo to present her latest movie “Salt” which will be release in Japanese theatres on July 31st and in which she plays the CIA agent Evelyn Salt who is accused of being a Russian spy. I had the great chance to assist to her press conference, the first one for me…and I wasn’t disappointed!

Everything was perfectly prepared to welcome the international star also called “Angie”. Just before her entrance in the conference room, the photographers and cameramen were installing their equipment and trying a few shoots to have the perfect light and angles. Background music from the movie was in the air.

And then she came, acclaimed by the journalists that where in the room and under a flurry of flashbulbs. She started talking about her children who just love Ponyo. And as funny as it may seem, half of the questions Angelina Jolie was asked to answer were about her children or her private life! Or maybe it’s also simply because Angelina herself refers often to her kids.

With a smile on her face, she told the journalists how her children had fun on the set while playing with fake blood and how she surprised her son Maddox by showing up disguised as an officer (for her film) and how he didn’t recognize her and was shocked afterwards to see his mum like this.

She doesn’t mind talking about her children, on the contrary! She seems to relate everything to her children, but doesn’t want to go into too much detail when it comes to her private life with Brad Pitt: when a journalist asked her something about her relationship with Brad, she didn’t know what to say...”Am I blushing now?” she asked.

And still, this pleasant and beautiful woman, mother of 6 children, plays a tough spy without mercy and “loves stunts”. How come? Who is Jolie? Well, Angelina Jolie is a very multifaceted woman who says she is very funny and silly at home and who on the other side plays in a very convincing way CIA agent Salt. But that’s nothing really new, as she kept proving it through her past relationships, her humanitarian work, and her previous movies.

The thing which is more interesting is what she said about finding a balance in life. She’s multifaceted, not only because of her personality, but because she’s searching for it. That is at least the reason she gives to explain why she chose to act in the movie “Salt”. After Clint Eastwood’s movie “Changeling” and the birth of her twins, she was in a very soft and maternal surrounding and Salt was the occasion for her to balance this with more action and aggression.

And in fact the film doesn’t lack action at all. It is without any doubt an action movie as the numerous stunts and fighting scenes show it. But it has also a deeper morality: it is about finding yourself, about becoming who you are and not who people or society want you to be. But I won’t tell you more about how this is related to Evelyn Salt, it would spoil the surprise about who she is, and this would be a pity! Because it is definitely the strong element of the movie: you don’t know when you’ll finally get the answer to the question “Who is Salt?”…and this until the very end!

The conference ended in the same way as it started: with a flurry of flashbulbs. And Angelina was offered a big bunch of flowers by the Japanese actress, model and singer Meisa Kuroki. After a big hug and posing together, both left the stage and everything returned to normal…Angelina had to get ready for the Tokyo Premiere of Salt on the same day!

[抄訳]

アンジェリーナ・ジョリーが、7月31日公開の最新主演映画「ソルト」のPRのために来日。今回、ロシアの二重スパイと疑われるCIAエージェントを熱演した彼女の来日記者会見に参加することになりました。

記者たちの手厚い歓迎と大量のカメラフラッシュがたかれる中、記者会見は始まりました。彼女がポニョのファンである子供たちの話題から話し始めると、彼女への質問の半分は彼女のプライベートに関してのものになりました。

彼女は笑いながら、記者に対して、子供たちが撮影で使う偽物の血で遊んでいたことや、映画の変装を利用してマドックス君を驚かせたことを説明していました。彼女は子供たちのことについて多くを話しました。まるで彼女のすべては子供と繋がっているかのようでしたが、パートナーであるブラッド・ピットのことに話題が及ぶと「私、赤くなっているかしら？」と呟き、言葉を濁していました。

また、彼女は6人の子供の母親でありながら、無慈悲なスパイを演じ、スタントを愛しているという。どうして？って思いますが、おそらく、アンジェリーナ・ジョリーはとても多角的な女性であるということでしょう。家庭では面白おかしく振る舞い、その一方ではCIAエージェントのソルトを説得力をもって演じる。だけど、それは彼女にとってなにも新しいことではなく、過去に彼女が行ってきた人道主義的な行動や出演してきた映画でも同じでした。

彼女の発言で興味深かったのは、人生におけるバランスの取り方です。彼女は多角的な人生を送ってますが、それは彼女の人格だけでなく、彼女自身が求めているものにも起因しています。それは、彼女が「ソルト」に出演したことからもわかります。クリント・イーストウッド監督の「チェンジリング」への出演後、彼女は双子の赤ちゃんを産みました。その母親としての生活は彼女にとって、とても居心地のいい時間だったはずです。そこで、よりアグレッシブになるためにアクション映画の「ソルト」を選んだのです。

実際、「ソルト」は数々のスタントとファイトシーン満載のアクション映画です。が、それ以上に深いモラルと自己探求を描いた映画でもあります。ただ、それがいかにイブリン・ソルトに関わっているかはここには書けません。「ソルトは誰か？」という質問の答えは映画の最後の最後でようやく明かされます。

会見は始まったときと同じようにたくさんのフラッシュがたかれる中で終わりました。アンジェリーナは日本の人気女優／シンガーの黒木メイサから大きな花束を受け取り、ハグとポーズの後、すべては普通に戻りました。