We were waiting for it with great curiosity, but also with a certain anxiety. “75 years of my life are in this film”, warned Steven Spielberg at the world premiere of The Fabelmanshis first openly autobiographical film, adding for good measure at the Golden Globes ceremony: “Here is who I am.” So it was better not to miss. Moviegoers can be fully reassured, our critics are unanimous. Both an ode to cinema and an emotional dive into the vulnerability of childhood, The Fabelmans offers a key that opens all of its creator’s secret boxes. The divorce of his parents will push Spielberg as a child to phone home in vain as E.T. (1982), and the eruption of anti-Semitism in his high school will terrify him like the shark in jaws (1975) will terrify millions of viewers.
Release retraces the extraordinary career of this chameleon, first adored by the general public but despised by critics, then admired by his peers, including François Truffaut, but belatedly recognized by the Academy of the Oscars; here it is today dubbed by critics and festivals but forgotten by the general public, The Fabelmans having experienced a bitter commercial failure when it was released in the United States. “Everything happens for a reason”, murmurs the mother of the young hero in the most pressing moments of the film, as if this Talmudic incantation (“Gam zou letova“) could really protect his son. Anyone who has seen his films will not be surprised to discover that his creative magic had a dark side to it. With his first camera as his only weapon, the young Spielberg will create the fictional world where he will take refuge, daring to expose himself only now, at 75, after his parents have died. That’s who he is, then, and that’s what saved him. Because cinema can be redeeming, and The Fabelmans is the proof.