I didn’t know what to expect as I walked into the Institut Français last week, ready to spend a full six-hour day in its in-house cinema. I worried I might get bored or struggle with the violence shown on screen. Any grotesque patriotism was likely to make me feel vaguely nauseous and, most of all, I was concerned that my hyperactive tendencies would make me regret embarking on the endeavour altogether.
Really, you could have given me a dozen guesses, and I doubt I would have landed on what actually ended up occurring, namely: I went to watch Antonin Baudry’s diptych of movies on the life of Charles de Gaulle, and I laughed but mostly I cried, and cried, and cried.
Some of my tears were sad and some of them were happy but mostly I just felt so emotional about it all. It was incredible to watch the true story of my country being betrayed and invaded, and of this one man, eventually followed by others, risking it all in order to free it again.
I wasn’t even the exception in that cinema room; at the end of the fight for Bir Hakeim, when the Free French took the fight to the Nazis in order to ensure the safety of some British regiments, the man next to me wept so extravagantly that he made our entire row of seats shake with his sobs. It was, in his defence, a classic war movie scene, and the bravery on show would have melted even the iciest of hearts.
The same could be said of the scene where Paris is liberated to the soundtrack of Paul Éluard reading one of his most famous poems, Liberté, which he wrote during the occupation. The sniffling in the auditorium was noticeable.
The scenes that made my eyes water, meanwhile, probably seemed a bit more absurd from the outside. Many of them involved fairly little action, on the battlefield or otherwise. Instead, they featured two older right wing men endlessly bickering, occasionally screaming at each other, but usually having each other’s backs.
While Baudry’s films are nominally about de Gaulle, they actually spend a remarkable amount of time discussing his relationship with Winston Churchill as the war unfolds. Played by a pitch-perfect and ever-charming Simon Russell Beale, the British prime minister is, in turn, a friend and a foe; a reassuring presence and an irritant; a provider of Hail Marys and the great Judas all in one.
Of course, much of their dialogue had to be invented, and some of the encounters probably didn’t happen at all, but that didn’t really matter. If anything, it didn’t feel like the relationship really was about the two men anyway, with the pair merely acting as allegories for their respective countries.
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That’s what made me so unexpectedly teary. I was born and bred in France but have now spent nearly half my life in the United Kingdom – that halfway point will come for me next year – and my relationship with both countries is a complicated one. Seeing them so close at a time when it mattered so much was so touching I found it nearly unbearable.
I did immediately feel the need to tell everyone about it, though. I came out of the cinema and had to resist the urge to grab passersby in the street and tell them about these beautiful, funny, hopeful movies.
Instead, I texted British friends with the zeal of a recently converted cult member, and am writing this now to try and convince you to watch them too. They will be showing at the Institut until Christmas, if you happen to be in London, and are bound to be online soon.
I really do hope they will eventually be as popular here as they were on the other side of the Channel, and that all involved will remember that we’re only ever at our best when standing together – no matter how annoying we may sometimes find one another…
