He is a bad romance actor and screenwriter, a chameleon who has rewritten his life at the expense of others', living in up to four simultaneous relationships with women in different countries. For the Frenchwoman Marianne, he was Alexandre, Brazilian thoracic surgeon. Kasia, a Pole from Warsaw, knew him as Ricardo, an engineer working in Paris. In the eyes of Nicole, a psychologist for teenagers, he was the romantic Daniel, an Argentinian, a doctor in the army. Carolina, who met him in a café in Paris, believed him to be Brazilian and an engineer at Peugeot, the son of a lawyer raised in the silk business. For Bruna, a Brazilian hairdresser and makeup artist, he was a considerate doctor and lover, who did not make the latter's trans identity a subject. All of them had more or less long and engaging relationships with this seducer, at the same time, without knowing it. All have succumbed to this
Man with 1000 Faces
that Sonia Kronlund portrays in
The Man with 1000 Faces,
a cinema documentary adapted from her investigative book of the same name (Ed.Grasset, January 2024).
This story of romantic imposture, expected in theaters on April 17, was discovered by the documentary maker by chance in 2017: Marianne, one of the man's victims, is a friend of a friend. Mother of a child born from her artificial union with the scammer, she recounts her love tragedy to the journalist who devotes a program to her in “Les pieds sur terre” on France Culture. Marianne, deeply wounded, is the one who flushed out the crook. When, five months into her pregnancy, she was no longer able to contact him, she tried to call his family: the numbers he gave her were wrong. She smells a trick and manages to connect to his digital accounts: he often used his computer. She then discovers to her “lover” a constellation of profiles and relationships. Little by little, through her, the other women learn the truth. “After the radio broadcast, this absurd story remained in my mind,” explains the director. I wasn't aware of it then, but no doubt it was because it echoed mine. I have often been attracted to manipulators and liars. When I was younger, I myself lived with an Englishman who passed himself off as American and who, although he said he was working, spent his days in the library.”
The subject of her film - Ricardo, as she also calls him about everything: his family, his job, his loyalty, his beliefs, his social condition, his friendships... He is polyglot, cultured, clever. His imaginary personalities are each more attractive than the last, his capacity for adaptation and his infallible memory are beyond comprehension. He circulates the objects among each person but discreetly enough so that it remains imperceptible. He also asks the women in his life for money, but not enough to arouse real suspicion. “This man is all the more formidable because he goes unnoticed, because he has the face and life of Mr. Everyman. We only detect the deception through the impression he leaves behind. A sort of strange sensation of fascination and unease,” according to Patrick Charrier, doctor in psychology and criminology. The victims of the shapeshifter are not alike: they all look for love but do not have the same expectations and needs. Endowed with great situational and emotional intelligence, he adapts to each of them. “There are no victim profiles,” says the director. I wanted to emphasize this point to relieve women of their guilt, to tell them “It can happen to anyone”. They really have nothing to reproach themselves for. They weren't gullible, but being in love usually makes you turn your head and let your guard down. With his emotional intelligence, he played a lot of it.
Motor perversion?
But why did he one day choose to become this mythomaniac? Is it adrenaline? The pleasure of romantic conquest? The consequences of a psychological illness? “We can think of dissociative identity disorders, often linked to early trauma which splits the self into different parts. Traumatized children need to create a new identity to protect the identity that was victimized, in order to survive.” The hypothesis seems plausible; the investigation reveals Ricardo's painful past: beaten by an alcoholic father, raised in poverty 70 km from Sao Paola, he invented a twin as a child. But where the game generally stops in adulthood, he extends it. At the age of 20, he posed as a police officer who had infiltrated a gang. “It fills an identity void. To be all these others is to prove to yourself that you are someone” adds Patrick Charrier, also director of Forhuman, a consulting firm specializing in human behavior and collective dynamics at work. The latter, however, puts forward another theory on the chameleon. “In true dissociative disorder, the personalities are not aware of each other. This is not the case here: he knows what he is doing and finds enjoyment where ordinary mortals would feel guilt. He engages others in his lie, even to the point of having children. He's more than a pathological liar. This is more of a perversion.” During his misdeeds, Ricardo became the father of four or five children whom he does not take care of, and has duped at least twenty victims for the long relationships listed "He would be great if he wasn't terribly malicious and evil” adds Sonia Kronlund, who says she was as terrified as she was intrigued by the charlatan. “He fascinates because he crosses the limits of morality and experiences things that we do not allow ourselves to do: polygamy, unscrupulous lying, fantasized identity,” analyzes Patrick Charrier. But it also destabilizes because, facing it, there are women who, anchored in reality and morality, suffer.
“A symbolic reparation”
Some wished to remain anonymous on screen: their story is embodied by actresses. On the other hand, he is shown in his true face, without filter. “We have assumed the legal risks. I cannot ask women who it took me years to convince to testify openly and then hide the culprit. We cannot protect this man and expose his victims to shame and humiliation.” In 2021, after finding him in Poland with the help of a detective, the director sets a trap for the forger: she poses as a journalist preparing a story on well-integrated expatriates. In front of his camera, he repeats his charming act, giving his interlocutor precisely what she expects. He is Ricardo, a 41-year-old Brazilian, well in all respects, living in Poland for 6 years, employed in cybersecurity, married, father of two daughters aged 6 and 8. “At first, I thought I would tell him the truth about my intentions but I quickly understood that he would deny his past and produce a new scenario, as always. He lies like he breathes, like an addict.”
In his new life, Ricardo is crazy about running. Either. Pretending the need to illustrate her subject, Sonia Kronlund makes him gallop in front of her lens, again and again. “I run Ricardo and I think of these women. I'm neither a judge nor a psychologist, that's all I have to offer them but we're going to take advantage of it. Come on, run, coco,” she quips in voice-over in her feature film. The jogging lasts, he sweats, always with a smile. The spectator is jubilant. “It’s the sprinkler watered. This irony is like me, it's my way of defending myself. It’s also a way of giving a little symbolic reparation to the women who have suffered” explains the director who, with this documentary, intends above all to give a voice, a body and a voice to the victims. “The writing and filming coincided with the #Metoo movement and, without me realizing it,
The Man with 1000 Faces
became a personal way of taking hold of it. Empowerment grew little by little. As the project progressed, I felt I was in the right place”
The Man with 1000 Faces
by Sonia Kronlund. In theaters April 17.