2023-10-01 18:06:53
Above all, do not confuse – at the risk of the slightly distracted spectator being slightly surprised… The Bernadette who gives her name to the film directed by Léa Domenach is not Bernadette Soubirous, but a homonym, almost as famous: Bernadette Chirac. Here, there is no apparition or miraculous cave, even if the first scene of the film takes place in a church. From the first minutes, the public is warned: the film is neither a documentary nor a political film as such, no. Rather a farce-like comedy, freely inspired by the life of the former first lady of France.
A president’s wife, cinema heroine? The idea, at the start, was not obvious to director Léa Domenach. Certainly, Bernadette Chirac “rocked” her youth. But for two reasons: “First, because she was the wife of the current president during my adolescence, she explains. Then because my father is a political journalist and worked on Chirac (1). So he was someone I had heard a lot about at home. Only, I didn’t necessarily have a very good image of it. »
For the future director, Bernadette Chirac is “corny, conservative”. And, to make matters worse ” of right ! »SO ” at the opposite ” of his own beliefs. Until the young woman came across the documentary on television Bernadette Chirac, memoirs of a free woman produced by Anne Barrère. “There, I discovered that his life was worth telling; that she would make a wonderful comedy character, with her incredible freedom of speech and her art of the phrase that hits the mark! For me who was fed the derision of “Giggles from the info or Little Journal, making a comedy in which she would be the heroine was also the opportunity, after having laughed a lot at her, to laugh with her. »
Bernadette (whose working title was for a long time The turtle – nickname given to Bernadette Chirac by her husband) is the story of emancipation. The misogynistic world of politics destines women to remain in the shadows? Bernadette Chirac (Catherine Deneuve, excellent in self-deprecation and counter-use) will win her freedom. Her husband (Michel Vuillermoz) repeats to her: “Never forget how lucky you were to marry me” What if she was ultimately her husband’s asset? The feature film recounts with mischief – and just the right amount of irreverence – this metamorphosis, carried out with the complicity of an image and communications advisor, Bernard Niquet, played by Denis Podalydès (top). “Jacques and Bernadette Chirac are two political animals. But for once, it is she, initially considered an outsider, who steals the spotlight by becoming more and more popular.notes Léa Domenach. “It’s even Jacques Chirac who, at one point, will appear in the photos to take advantage of this popularity”laughs Denis Podalydès.
“Bernadette” by Léa Domenach, in theaters October 4, 2023. / Laurent CHAMPOUSSIN/Karé Productions
“With my co-writer, we have seen everything, read everything, we have become knowledgeable about Chiraquia” continues the director. How to balance fiction and reality? “Some scenes are real, others pure invention, still others have been recreated for the purposes of comedy. We know, for example, that in 2007 Bernadette Chirac met Nicolas Sarkozy to give him his support for the presidential election. But where ? Mystery. It made us laugh to transpose the scene into a confessional. » A wink to remind us that Nicolas Sarkozy had, in the eyes of Bernadette Chirac, things to be forgiven for after having betrayed the Chirac clan during the 1995 presidential campaign.
There is, in Léa Domenach’s gaze, a form of tenderness towards her main character, a loyal wife despite her pranks, a mother worried about her sick eldest daughter. “Perhaps, in reality, she is tougher… but I needed a heroine, someone who could become attached to her. And I’m not a cynic. » The politicians, for their part, take it for their rank: above ground, Alain Juppé, Xavier Bertrand, Dominique de Villepin (whom Bernadette Chirac will nickname “the strategist”for having advised to dissolve the National Assembly in 1997). “The political world is a theater”, believes Denis Podalydès, who played Nicolas Sarkozy in the film The conquestin 2011. A theater with “his good guys, his deceivers, his second knives, his great heroic figures”lists the member of the Comédie-Française.
At a time when politicians arouse mistrust, when citizens desert the polls, can making people laugh about politics and its petty infamies further discredit this world? ” I do not think so. Laughing at politics also brings a breath of fresh air, a hope”for Léa Domenach. “There could indeed be a risk in playing with democratic values, in making fun of state service, admits Denis Podalydès. But caricature, the right to make fun of leaders, occupy a central place in freedom of expression. It’s even healthy, I think, that a democracy can play with its own figures. An authoritarian regime would prohibit any use of this irony. » Although the Chirac family was never consulted, they saw the film in a private screening. Without yet having made public what she thought about it.
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