Worth: $18.50
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Cast:
Elsa Zylberstein, Rebecca Marder, Olivier Gourmet, Elodie Bouchez
Intro:
… as inspiring as it is harrowing.
From the director of the celebrated La Vie En Rose and the maligned Grace of Monaco, Olivier Dahan, Simone: Woman of the Century is a French biopic that is as inspiring as it is harrowing.
Simone Veil was a social reformer, a feminist, a magistrate, Health Minister and the first woman to become the president of the European Parliament. She was also a Shoah survivor.
The film begins with an elderly, dignified Veil reflecting back on her life. The film discards chronology and soon moves to her idyllic childhood in Nice as part of a secular Jewish family, with a patriotic father who believed France would not abandon its Jewish community. It keeps moving – fairly seamlessly – from one period to another. It shows her time as a magistrate, trying to transform mediaeval French prisons. There’s also her fight for abortion rights in parliament in the 1970s, for which she is best known. Also, her work with people living with AIDS and reporting on the horrific conditions faced by Algerian prisoners. The film also looks at her home life with her generally supportive husband Antoine (Olivier Gourmet) and their children.
The dark horror of the Shoah is left for the latter part of the film, which gives this biopic an intense power.
The younger Veil is played by Rebecca Marder, while Elsa Zylberstein portrays Veil in later years. Zylberstein’s age make-up is a little heavy but not too distracting, and both actresses are superb.
This beautifully filmed biopic did big business at the box office in its native France. Dahan, who also wrote the script, never loses his focus on Veil’s life and places her in historical context, utilising the extraordinary woman’s statements on racism, injustice, France’s inability to face up to sending tens of thousands of French Jews to the camps, as well as where Europe may be heading right now.
Despite two women playing one character and the shifting time periods, the film feels unified. Dahan doesn’t show, he tells – there’s a moment when Veil, while campaigning for a united Europe, faces the National Front. She is defiant and stands up to them (as well as many others), which encapsulates her incredible strength of character.
A robust biopic recommended to those who wish to know more about Veil, a trail-blazer who triumphed over terrible and systematic adversity.
