The filmmaker of "The War of Fire" seemed predestined, forty years later, to direct "Notre-Dame burns".
Nothing to do, of course, except the size and scale of the projects.
Jean-Jacques Annaud, in 1981, had revolutionized French cinema with his vision of prehistory and the birth of humanity by taming fire, an already exceptional shoot.
At 78, the old master was given a budget of 30 million euros by an old-fashioned mogul of French cinema, Jérôme Seydoux, 87, still dashing boss of Pathé.
Perhaps this experience and this expertise, their know-how in terms of very large productions, was needed to carry out this monumental ambition to tell the decisive hours, minutes and seconds of the fire of the cathedral on April 15, 2019, without known actors – as in “La Guerre du Feu” – and playing on several registers.
Fiction and Documentary.
The images shot by Annaud and those taken from countless amateur and professional films.
The special effects and the very impressive real images of fires taken in several cathedrals, from Bourges to Sens.
Superheroes without gadgets
Annaud is on a mission.
To tell the failures then the epic, that of the firefighters who saved Notre-Dame by taking risks whose dangerousness we did not imagine at this point.
To also put French cinema, struggling since the reopening of theaters, in its place and in the race against American blockbusters.
At Notre Dame, superheroes don't have Batman-style costumes or gadgets.
The film, based on a truth as close as possible to the facts, will seek deeper emotions than a simple action film: responsibility, relentlessness and audacity when nothing goes as planned.
Notre-Dame could have collapsed.
This other fire war, the firefighters have won.
Annaud too.
EDITOR'S RATING: 4/5
“Notre-Dame is burning”,
by Jean-Jacques Annaud, with Samuel Labarthe, Chloé Jouannet, Pierre Lottin, Vassili Schneider, Jean-Paul Bordes… 1h50.
