At the time of 86e anniversary of the Appeal of June 18, director Antonin Baudry offers a historical diptych devoted to the long fight of General de Gaulle with The Battle of Gaulle. Released for its first part on June 3, the work retraces, in an epic film, the fight of Charles de Gaulle so that France remains on the right side of history.
A film carried by the play of actor Simon Abkarian, who plays General de Gaulle. Already used to playing historical characters, like the communist resistance fighter Missak Manouchian in the film L’Armée du crime (2009) by Robert Guédiguian, he aptly embodies this figure in French history.
Through this role, he joins the restricted circle of actors who have taken on the stature of this historical character. Because if most towns in France have a square or a street named after him, cinema has not taken as much interest in this historical figure.
A shadow
At the end of the war, if a few films began to be made about the Resistance, they only mentioned General de Gaulle as a name, a shadow or a rallying sign, because he was the subject of a form of sacralization. From 1958 and its rise to power, films on the Resistance began to abound. But his double figure, both former leader of Free France and active politician, greatly limits his representation.
It was not until 1978 that his character was actually played by Jacques Boudet in the television film broadcast on Antenne 2, 12 days to make historywhile the general has been dead for eight years and his shadow is less significant in French society. However, his character often remains secondary. It was not until 2005 that he became the main hero with The Great Charleswhich traces the reconstruction of France in the post-war period.
Then, in 2020, director Gabriel Le Bomin released Of Gaulle. This is the first biopic dedicated to him to be released in theaters. Starring Lambert Wilson, the film received mixed reviews in the press, praising the actor’s performance while regretting the very conventional aspect of the work.
The work of Antonin Baudry is therefore part of this progressive presence, in the seventh art, of the character of General de Gaulle, now desecrated, but who remains an emblematic figure in the history of France.
