I saw this movie yesterday, with somebody who have neither live in this country during Mitterand's presidency, nor had an interest with our narrow views on our own politics. And I was surprised,thinking I would show her part of the history of one of the most important guy in our recent history (the French one), to see that, actually, it's not about this president at all. Of course, there's some names mentioned, some events, but the main character is called "Mr President" and nothing else, and the movie focuses on "off times" of the president, moments of privacy shared with a journalist who is supposed to write a book about him. This is the story of an old man who, facing his death, tries to find peace and struggle to do what he have to face. The last two month of his presidency, when, literally eaten by his disease, he slowly becomes an impotent. The wish of being in the memory of his country ("Tell them than I'm not the Evil", he says to Antoine, the young idealistic journalist). His childish behavior (when he forces his bodyguards to stays on the beach and talk about poetry while the rain starts to fall, or when he confesses that he'd like to drive a Renault down the fifth avenue with Julia Roberts on his side...). And, most of all, his fight against his own past. About this, the best moment in this movie is when he says that some Jewish group wants "France to bow and begs for pardon like Willy Brandt. But that was not France !" After all, this is a story of a man who has such a past, such a (hi)story, that he becomes his own country, with all its contradictions, dark sides, denial, but also hopes, and definitely a sharp sense of humor... Although we could say that it's about time that this country turns the page and faces its history (what Mitterand never did), we can't say, here in France, that he will be forgotten. Never a president has be his country such as he did.
Review of The Last Mitterrand
