2023-11-26 22:31:28
The best series of the week
ALBERTO KING
Updated Sunday, November 26, 2023 – 21:31
No one would have been able to invent these characters. France already loved them in real life, now it’s the rest of us’s turn
Philanthropist Liniane Bettencourt with her husband and daughter
The last 30 years of Liliane Bettencourt are so strange that the richest woman in the world would be unviable as a fictional character. We believe his life because that life existed. In The Bettencourt Affair, a French Netflix documentary miniseries, they tell us about her, from the late 80s until her death in 2017. From the arrival of Franois-Marie Banier into her life until the title of richest woman in the world passed at the hands of his daughter, the worrying Françoise Bettencourt Meyers.
banner, another character that no one would have known how to inventcame into Liliane’s life in 1987. Mundane, fun and enjoyment (and homosexual) this photographer became the best friend of the super-millionaire, extremely bored and prisoner of an idea of discretion and privacy. austerity that seemed like a waste to Banier.
With his new adventure partner, Bettencourt, majority shareholder of L’Oral, started traveling and spending. At the same time, also to anoint politicians of all affiliation in exchange for a political influence as diffuse as it is effective. Her daughter soon became suspicious of Franois-Marie Banier (it was estimated that the “donations” he received from Lilianne were close to 1 billion euros) while French justice, society and the media were scandalized (finally). with the open secret of the envelopes with a lot of cash who gave themselves left and right chez Lilianne. And then some audio recorded in that house came to light.
The Bettencourt case connects the French billionaire’s scandals into a unitary narrative with a clear common thread: At what number does one lose track of what money means? This question, which could lead to innumerable argumentsis explored in The Bettencourt Case in a very interesting way.
In the miniseries, the recordings that France flips with are supported by elegant recreations with actors. These, in turn, are explained and commented on by journalists, protagonists of the story or Arielle Dombasle, a priceless French star who does not miss a single one. Like the story of The Bettencourt Affair, she is impossible as fiction. But there you have it, talking about your friend Franoise, by Franois-Marie Banier and whatever they ask of him. Born in the USA and married to Bernard-Henry Lvi, Dombasle It’s a bit like the French Ana Obregn. Also a symbol of how well France knows how to mix culture with cabaret, politics with sequins and money with everything.
In The Bettencourt Affairit works as a metaphor: he knew but he kept quiet, he was shocked but just enough, he looked the other way but that side did not exist. Throughout the miniseries, we see graphics with the exorbitant figures that moved between Lilianne Bettencourt and the rest of the world. They serve to let’s not lose perspective, although sometimes they achieve just the opposite. Lilianne’s fortune was estimated at 30,000 million euros. Her daughter’s today exceeds 93,000, an amount that almost triples L’Oreal’s annual turnover. I get lost. And that’s how it goes, of course.
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