Biopic of French politician and Holocaust survivor defies critics
A biopic of the late Simone Veil, one of France's most admired public figures, has received some damning reviews, but its success at the box office shows there's an appetite for tales of strong women and dark periods in French history.
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In the biopic "Simone, le voyage du siècle" (Simone, a woman of the century) director Olivier Dahan paints the portrait of French politician, women’s rights champion and Holocaust survivor Simone Veil.
In bringing her tumultuous life to the screen, the film also shines a light on some key moments in 20th century France and shows how they resonate today.
The film drew close to half a million spectators in its first week.
It’s long – 2 hours 20 minutes – but then Veil did a lot.
This story first appeared in the Spotlight on France podcast. Listen here.
Quest for social justice
As health minister in 1974, Veil defended the right to abortion and the "Veil Law" was enacted in 1975. At the time she was one of only nine women at the National Assembly. The film shows the opposition and barrage of personal abuse she faced from some of the 481 male MPs. One compared the law to "throwing embryos into a cremation oven", another accused her of genocide.
A committed European, she became the first elected president of the European Parliament in 1979. Again, she overcame staunch opposition.
We see her facing off Nazi salutes from members of the far-right National Front at a campaign meeting. “I am not afraid. I survived much worse than you," she shouts.
The film also showcases her lesser-known time as a young magistrate in the early 50s – both her fight to overcome misogyny to become a working mother and her insistence on improving the appalling conditions in French prisons.
During Algeria's war of independence, she and lawyer Gisèle Halimi obtained the transfer of a number of Algerians from prisons in Algiers to mainland France. Imprisoned for "terrorist" activities within the FLN movement, they had suffered torture, sometimes rape, at the hands of the French army.
Veil also fought to protect the rights of immigrants, AIDS victims and prostitutes.
Her deep conviction in the need for social justice for all, regardless of gender, religion or race, came from her experience of deportation says Olivier Dahan, the film’s director and scriptwriter.
"The camps are ever-present," he told RFI. "When you read Simone Veil’s autobiography "Une Vie" (A Life) they seep through every line.
"Having lived through such horror, she could no longer stand any form of injustice or bear to see anyone treated with contempt."
The death camps
Veil was deported to Auschwitz in 1944, aged 16, along with her mother Yvonne Jacob and older sister Madeleine. Her mother died in the camps, her father and brother were deported elsewhere and she never saw them again.
On her return to France the film shows how Simone, like other Holocaust survivors, was pushed not to talk about what had happened. France was not ready to address its role in the deportation of 76,000 Jews.
Veil is tormented by the imposed silence.
She goes public in 1975 when as health minister she ceremoniously lays the first brick in a children’s hospital. An official compliments her on her handling of the trowel. "I learned to do this in the camps, it was my job," she replies, as the TV cameras roll.
The death camps are portrayed only at the end of the film, allowing that sense of forced silence to build.
The scenes, filmed in half-darkness, zoom in on the anguish and terrified expressions of teenager Simone, played by Rebecca Marder, as she queues up naked with her mother and sister to have their heads shaved and jewellery removed.
There's ongong debate over how to portray the camps on screen, but Dahan says he didn’t hesitate to represent them.
"I was careful about the writing," he told RFI, "but I didn’t hesitate much because I asked myself: 'Has a 15-year-old seen "Shoah" by Claude Lanzmann? No. Have they seen "Schindler’s List"? No. Have they seen "The Pianist"? I don’t think so'.
"So it was perhaps time to jog peoples’ memories. And NOT showing the camps was out of the question".
Dahan grew up in a family of anti-racism activists, and some of his relatives had been deported.
"I reached a certain age where I wanted to talk about it. I wanted to pass something on to younger people. And using emotion was a way of getting them to engage".
A 'bad' film
Some critics have panned the film as "melodramatic", "a blooper of a biopic", "wooden", "airbrushed", "pedantic".
Eric Schwald, a teacher of French and who writes for the online cinema review SensCritique was not impressed.
"I think it’s a very bad film," he told RFI. "It's over-written, the dialogue is extremely artificial, everything is demonstrative, nothing is natural. Every scene is there to illustrate a point."
He highlights a scene where a glamorous Veil is strolling through a market in Paris with a girlfriend.
"Women keep stopping to thank her for what she’s done for them. Every bit of that conversation feels like a paragraph from Wikipedia".
In the public interest
But seen in the company of his 14-year-old son, who like all French kids in the final year of middle school is studying WW2, the film has far more merit.
"We discussed the film afterwards, my son enjoyed it, and was quite bowled over by the death camps, the fight for abortion rights," said Schwald. "He found it instructive and interesting. And for me, that was the point."
As abortion rights are rolled back in the US and threatened elsewhere; as the far-right continues to make headway in France, Italy and Sweden, Veil’s battles still resonate.
Schwald says Dahan's target audience was clearly the younger generation, rather than film buffs like him.
"The film is definitely not made for cinema lovers but for history teachers and their classes. It’s even in the public interest.
"The film had to exist because this woman is incredible. We know pupils won’t read biographies or memoirs of Simone Veil, but they can see this film. It’s very worthwhile".
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