★★★★½
We hear about the French Resistance, and rightly so, but what happened to the French military after France fell? What exactly was Free France, who fought for it, and how did those forces contribute to the eventual Allied victory? Until watching De Gaulle: Résistance, I realised I really didn’t know.
I have always been fascinated by World War II and perhaps some of that comes from my own family’s history. They came to Australia after the war, losing family, friends and livelihoods during those years. Perhaps that’s why the war has always felt like more than just history to me.
Yet living in Australia also means that the version of World War II we are most familiar with tends to be told from an Australian, British or American perspective. We hear about Tobruk, Churchill, D-Day and the American and British campaigns across Europe.
Directed by Antonin Baudry, De Gaulle: Résistance is the first part of a two-part French epic following Charles de Gaulle’s emergence from relative obscurity in 1940 and his struggle to establish Free France.
At around two hours and forty minutes, there is an enormous amount of history to cover, but the film drops us into the chaos of France’s defeat and follows de Gaulle as he tries to convince a defeated nation, its allies and even his own countrymen that France is not finished. The second part will continue the story later this year.
I was particularly interested to discover that the film is adapted from British historian Julian Jackson’s acclaimed biography A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle. Jackson was also involved with the production as a historical adviser, which makes the film’s attempt to recreate this complicated period even more interesting.
I have already found myself wanting to read the book because the film left me with the feeling that I had only just scratched the surface of a history I should have known more about.
What struck me most was how much of this history was new to me. I knew de Gaulle as the French general who became the leader of the Free French. I had assumed, rather simplistically, that Free France was essentially the handful of French soldiers who escaped and continued fighting alongside the Allies.
The reality was far more complicated. De Gaulle was trying to create a military and political force while France itself was divided, occupied and governed by Vichy. He wasn’t simply trying to win battles, he was trying to preserve the idea that France still existed as a nation capable of choosing its own future.
Then there was Mers el Kébir. I had never heard about the 1940 British attack on the French fleet in Algeria, in which almost 1,300 French sailors were killed. Britain feared the French ships could eventually fall into German hands, but the attack understandably created enormous bitterness in France and made de Gaulle’s already difficult position even more complicated.
It was one of those moments where I found myself thinking, how did I get this far through my interest in World War II without knowing this?
Then comes Bir Hakeim, where Free French forces under General Pierre Koenig held their position in North Africa against German and Italian forces, buying valuable time for the British Eighth Army to withdraw.
The film’s North African defence sequences are some of its strongest, and for an Australian viewer it was impossible not to think about the stories we tell about the Rats of Tobruk and wonder why the French contribution at Bir Hakeim isn’t equally familiar to us.
The film made me realise that parts of the war were being fought on a much more complicated stage than the version of it I had absorbed. This is where De Gaulle: Résistance moves beyond the biopic and invites us to look again at the history we think we know.
Simon Abkarian is superb as Charles de Gaulle. He plays him as stoic, proud, stubborn and absolutely convinced that he is right. There is something almost extraordinary about de Gaulle’s confidence at the beginning, a relatively unknown general behaving as though he already speaks for an entire country. Yet as the story develops, you begin to understand why that certainty was necessary.
I came away thinking that perhaps de Gaulle really was the man France needed. He wasn’t necessarily easy to like, and the film doesn’t pretend he was, but somebody had to refuse to accept that France had ceased to exist simply because its government had surrendered. Abkarian makes that conviction believable without turning de Gaulle into a conventional heroic figure.
Simon Russell Beale is equally impressive as Winston Churchill. Their relationship provides some of the film’s best moments, with Churchill appearing to recognise something in de Gaulle that others don’t, even while finding him enormously difficult to deal with. Their relationship feels like a mixture of political necessity, mutual respect and two enormous personalities constantly pushing against each other.
The French performances are excellent across the board, particularly Benoît Magimel as General Pierre Koenig and Niels Schneider as General Philippe Leclerc. Both bring enormous presence to their roles and make the Free French military feel like a genuine fighting force rather than simply a collection of characters orbiting de Gaulle.
The film also benefits from showing that the story wasn’t just being made by famous generals. The younger characters bring another perspective to the conflict.
Anamaria Vartolomei’s Livia represents the desperation and fear inside France, while Florian Lesieur’s Fernand and Chaïm Feroleto’s Pierre show the human cost of that desperation. Livia survives, while the deaths of Fernand and Pierre are particularly heartbreaking because the film has allowed us to see the people behind the statistics of war.
I also appreciated the film’s exploration of the Resistance through Jean Moulin, played by Félix Kysyl. His involvement gives us a glimpse of the enormous complexity of trying to coordinate resistance within occupied France, although this was one area where I wanted more. The Resistance is touched upon rather than explored in depth, and I suspect that is partly the consequence of trying to fit such an enormous story into one film.
Technically, the film is spectacular. Cinematographers Pierre Cottereau and Giora Bejach have created some genuinely beautiful images, but it was the editing and some of the transitions between scenes that really caught my attention. There are cuts that feel almost startling in their effectiveness, moving between the personal and the enormous historical events surrounding the characters.
The North African sequences have real scale and intensity, while the recreation of wartime France and England is convincing down to the sets, uniforms, clothing and period vehicles. It never feels like actors have been placed into costumes and dropped into a historical setting.
The film moves between French and English, with French dialogue accompanied by subtitles, and I thought that worked particularly well. It retains the French identity of the story while allowing the British and American characters to feel naturally integrated into the same world.
What I ultimately loved about De Gaulle: Résistance is that it made me curious. A good historical film should entertain you, but a great one can make you realise how much you don’t know.
I finished this film wanting to know more about de Gaulle, Koenig, Leclerc, the Free French, the Resistance, Vichy France, Bir Hakeim and the political battles being fought behind the battlefield. What other stories are out there? How many countries invaded by Germany have histories of courage and sacrifice that rarely make it into the films, books and plays we see in Australia?
For a war buff, De Gaulle: Résistance is a must-see. It is a three-hour commitment, but it is the sort of film that sends you home wanting to open a history book. For me, that is exactly what happened. I went in thinking I knew quite a lot about World War II and came out realising there was an enormous French chapter I had barely understood.
Perhaps that is the most important thing this film achieves. It opens a door into another part of a war we think we know, and makes you wonder what other stories are still waiting to be discovered.
DE GAULLE: Résistance opens on Thursday 3 September in participating cinemas nationally.
Website: https://rialtodistribution.com/film/de-gaulle-resistance-liberte-aus/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/rialtodistributionau/
Watch the trailer below:
Film details:
Title: De Gaulle: Résistance (Part 1)
Director: Antonin Baudry
Cast: Simon Abkarian, Simon Russell Beale, Florian Lesieu Florian Lesieu, Benoît Magimel
Country of Origin: France
Duration: 160 mins
Rating: TBC
Leave a Reply