Bernadette: Catherine Deneuve Imperial (review)
A scathing and cheeky comedy around the journey of Bernadette Chirac, heroine of a political survival who takes on the caricature.
Let’s start by talking about internal cooking, since that’s all we’re talking about in this Bernadette, a comedy supposed to introduce us to the gold of our republic through the journey of Madame Chirac. A rare thing to be noted is that the film was subject to a critical embargo, forcing the journalist who discovered it at a press screening not to issue any criticism – good or bad – before its release. A fate usually reserved for big Hollywood machines so as not to disrupt their expensive communications plan. Why so much caution with our Bernadette national? Did the trailer – very funny – and the poster – pop – have something to hide? And in fact, Bernadette is the story of a dissimulation, that of a woman, First Lady of France between 1995 and 2007, confined by her “function” to being a tapestry (the poster does not lie) The misogyny of the political world being what it is, the director imagines a survival which sees, her heroine, alone against everyone, finally take her revenge in defiance of official History (the very idea of cinema) In addition to being good, the idea was cheeky , Bernadette Chirac having until now been assigned to her own image, that of a surly granny and old France clinging to her handbag offering by contrast, the luxury to her husband of appearing relaxed and friendly.
This is what had to be reversed at the risk of hagiography. Léa Domenach, whose first feature film is, assumes and looks with empathy at a misanthropic Bernadette who in turn looks at a cynical world in which she suddenly intends to take part. This masochistic and rebellious trajectory is a perfect alloy for comedy (the trailer doesn’t lie) Catherine Deneuve, with his little onions, enjoys this closed circuit bowling game where paradoxically the caricature sheds its mask from reality. This is why even if it divided our editorial staff (some regretting, for example, the overly enamored aspect of the portrait of the former General Councilor of Corrèze, contrasting with the fate, harsh and lacking in nuance, reserved for that of her daughter Claude), Bernadette therefore deserved better than an embargo which risks depriving it once again of its freedom to be filthy.
By Léa Domenach. With: Catherine Deneuve, Michel Vuillermoz, Denis Podalydès… Duration: 1h32. Released October 4.
