The French connection

A look at what’s on offer at this year’s local celebration of le cinéma francais.

Just as the nights are drawing in and the days turning cold, the annual French Film Festival Aotearoa returns with an excellent assortment of recent fare. From le mélodrame to la comédie, the heartrending to the nerve-racking, there truly is something for every penchant.

Notre-Dame on Fire is a gripping dramatisation of the devastating fire that cut through the 800-year-old cathedral on the Monday before Easter in 2019. Mixing naturalistic performances from an unrecognisable cast with liberal use of news and phone footage, the film succeeds in being unsentimental yet still deeply affecting as it depicts the disaster almost minute by minute and shows how rescue efforts were hampered.

Particularly fascinating are the insights we gain into how the various authorities responded: there's the cathedral's general manager fighting to get through the cordon in order to save an irreplaceable holy relic, and the fire engines rushing to the scene caught in stubborn Paris traffic.

Using hand-held camerawork to create an immersive sense of panic, as centuries-old doors slam shut and smoke envelops those caught inside, veteran director Jean-Jacques Annaud (The Name of the Rose) turns a moving cultural tragedy into an exciting thriller.