the opinion of the “world” – to see
The first has been revolving around the second for a while now. Gabriel Le Bomin (director) had already dealt with de Gaulle (general) obliquely. Whether in his documentaries dealing with the Algerian war, free France, institutions, and even in his latest film, Our patriots (2017) – where a young Senegalese rifleman participates in a resistance network – the founder of the Ve République displayed its shadow and its legend.
But to approach it head-on, as the protagonist of a fiction, present throughout the narrative, it was still necessary to decide which de Gaulle to offer to viewers. Fifty years after his death on November 9, 1970, which one can interest the public? The soldier of 1914-1918, wounded and taken prisoner? The rebel ? The constitutional reformer? The architect of decolonization? The president overtaken by May 68? The walker on the Irish moor, as in exile after he left office?
By choosing the man of June 18, Gabriel Le Bomin and his screenwriter, Valérie Ranson Enguiale, did not only make the prudent choice to limit the action of the film to the period from the months of May to July 1940, avoiding to embark on a heavy historical fresco. They also pinned de Gaulle, interpreted by Lambert Wilson, at a time in his life when, at 50, fragile and romantic, he doubted his destiny.
Either the events concede to him a short biography of a rebel soldier, but snubbed by the staff, good husband and good father of three children, including Anne, Down’s syndrome; or they offer him the seed of a warchief and a visionary statesman. Between Yvonne (Isabelle Carré) and France, her heart rocks. Finally, it will be France. The opening scene where the General is languidly and tenderly lying against his wife appears in this yardstick as the warrior’s last rest.
Standing and alone
Everything rushes. The German advance plunges civilians and the military into panic. Weak, Paul Reynaud (Olivier Gourmet) explores political solutions, such as this idea of a Franco-English confederation which, at the time of Brexit, reminds us that time decisively passes very quickly; Pétain petochs and says he is ready to collaborate with the Germans, which he will eventually do; Mandel doesn’t feel it.
The General, appointed undersecretary of state for war and national defense, remains standing. And alone. In motion, traveling the country in all directions, from Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises (Haute-Marne) to Paris, from Paris to Bordeaux – where the government took refuge -, to Brittany where he will kiss Yvonne and the children, before joining London where he will obtain from Winston Churchill, another stubborn loner, the authorization to launch his famous call on the waves of the BBC. This is where the film ends, having modestly achieved the goal it set for itself, coasting as close as possible to the historical facts under the supervision of historian Michel Wieviorka.
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