The first broadcast on Canal+ and myCANAL of Asterix and Obelix: the Middle Kingdom, the fifth film based on the comic, directed by Guillaume Canet, offers the encrypted channel the opportunity for a very beautiful and touching documentary on Albert Uderzo, who died in March 2020 at the age of 92.
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If the life of René Goscinny (1926-1977) is now known to the general public, that of the co-creator of Asterix and Obelix is much less so. To paint his portrait, the director Yannick Saillet has put the small dishes in the big ones. From Alain Chabat to Alexandre Astier, Guillaume Canet, Anne Goscinny, Sylvie Uderzo or Ada Uderzo, his wife, not to mention Zep, the creator of Titeuf, or François Boucq, all speak with tremolos in the voice of this master of comics, as virtuoso and brilliant on paper as he was shy and reserved in life.
Born in Fismes in the Oise department on April 25, 1927, the son of Italian immigrants, Albert Uderzo became a naturalized French citizen seven years later. At birth, young Albert is already a phenomenon because he has twelve fingers, six in each hand, and will be operated very quickly. Sylvie Uderzo recalls with fondness that her father considered "these two little balls as his lucky charms". This film, generous, documented, narrated by Antoine de Caunes, retraces with precision and benevolence the itinerary of this spoiled cartoonist who marked the twentieth century with his graphic imprint.
From his debut to France Sunday, through Pilote to Parc Asterix, and five films with tens of millions of admissions, we passionately follow the rise of Uderzo, who kept until the end of his life a complex linked to his origins. "For some, we were macaroni who came to eat the bread of the French," he said. Anne Goscinny adds: "On one side, an Ashkenazi Jew, half Polish, half Ukrainian, on the other, an Italian; it's funny to think that these two men, who did not have a drop of French blood in their veins, created the most famous French myth of the twentieth century. What is sometimes the magic of great works...