Sarah Bernhardt, gerse or brainless?

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Sarah Bernhardt, chapped or brainless?

Guillaume Nicloux’s film paints an unflattering portrait of one of the world’s first stars. Without audacity, alas.

Published today at 9:29 a.m.

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Gaiter buttons, camellias and smoky boudoirs. The obsession with this type of film is often its reconstruction. Do it right. Recreating an era, here at the end of the 19th centurye century. Put things in context. In this regard, Guillaume Nicloux acts as a bit of a good student, top of the class. To tell the story of the rise, glory and fall of one of the world’s biggest stars, Sarah Bernhardt, he resurrects a lost world that is more like the back room of an accessories store than ‘a scene of life captured from life.

Was “Divine Sarah Bernhardt” an icon? Yes, according to what has been written about her. No, looking at the rare films that she left to posterity, as well as the dominant vision of this biopic where she comes off as a jerk at worst and at best as a brainless person, even if the emphasis is above all on her liaison with Lucien Guitry, father of Sacha and male equivalent of Sarah Bernhardt at that time.

In no way endearing, her character, played without grace by a Sandrine Kiberlain who we knew was more inspired, struggles in a world that she never ceases to scrutinize. The couplet of feminist modernity seems to be artificially added to this vision of a Belle Époque constrained in its principles and very corseted in its morals, in no way liberated, contrary to what several sequences mean.

From one genre to another

The most curious thing about all of this is the disconcerting ease and especially the apparent ease with which Guillaume Nicloux jumps from one genre to another, from one register to its opposite. A few weeks ago, we could discover “In the Skin of Blanche Houellebecq”, an offbeat and absurd joke where almost anything was possible. In 2023, he plunged into the middle of a family drama with “The Little One”, just after having dabbled in horror films with “The Tower”.

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We have rarely seen a more unpredictable filmmaker, which is actually a good thing. But he who kisses too much hugs badly. The “classic” biopic denotes its limitations and makes it a little transparent. We would have liked audacity, freedom of tone and a more cowardly humor. Maybe next time.

Note: *, biopic ( – 98’)

•= hateful, °= at your own risk, *= good, **= interesting, ***= excellent, ****= masterpiece

Pascal Gavillet has been a journalist in the cultural section since 1992. He mainly deals with cinema, but he also writes on other areas. Especially science. As such, he is also a mathematician.More info @PascalGavillet

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