Dans les années les plus sombres du XXe siècle, un homme refusa de plier — et c'est ce refus que le cinéaste Antonin Baudry a mis six ans à restituer à l'écran. Le second volet de sa saga consacrée à Charles de Gaulle couvre la période 1943-1945, ces années où la France libre n'était encore qu'une idée obstinée portée entre Londres, Washington, l'Afrique du Nord et les caves de la Résistance. Baudry, ancien diplomate nourri de centaines d'ouvrages historiques, offre au spectateur ce que le cinéma contemporain peine souvent à produire : une épopée qui honore la complexité d'un destin sans jamai
Baudry's De Gaulle Epic Concludes: Four Films Worth Your Time This Week
A nation fractured, defeated, and scattered across the globe
Mark
So this is really two films, not one. Why did Baudry split it this way?
Mimi
The scope demanded it. The first covers 1940 and the decision to resist; the second spans 1943 to 1945, when that resistance had to become real—battles, politics, survival. You can't compress that.
Luke
But do you need to see the first one to understand the second? The review assumes you do.
Mimi
Probably yes. The second film builds on the foundation the first laid about why de Gaulle made that choice in the first place.
Mark
The review says Baudry spent six years on this. What does that kind of time investment actually produce on screen?
Mimi
Depth. He read hundreds of books. You feel that research in the specificity—the way the political maneuvering between Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle plays out isn't simplified.
Luke
But the review doesn't tell us what scenes or moments justify calling it "moving." It says the second film is "even more moving" than the first, but I don't know what that means in practice.
Mimi
Fair point. The review is more about the film's ambition than its execution. But the presence of Jean Moulin and the Resistance fighters suggests Baudry is showing the human cost, not just the political chess game.
Mark
Is this a film for people who already know de Gaulle, or can someone walk in cold?
Luke
The review doesn't answer that directly. It says the second film has "clearer timelines and characters," which suggests it's more accessible than the first. But "clearer" doesn't mean "clear."
Mimi
I'd guess you need some baseline knowledge of WWII and France's position in it. This isn't a primer.
Mark
What about the acting? Abkarian carries both films?
Mimi
Yes, and the review suggests he's perfectly cast—Armenian-French, which perhaps gives him access to the outsider quality de Gaulle had, even as a Frenchman.
Luke
That's speculation on the reviewer's part. What we know is Abkarian plays de Gaulle with "unwavering bravado" in the first film and "brilliantly" in the second. Those are different assessments, which is interesting.
El Pulso
- De Gaulle se retrouve cerné de toutes parts — Churchill sceptique, Roosevelt franchement hostile, Giraud rival ambitieux — et c'est dans cet étau politique que se joue véritablement la survie de la France libre.
- Jean Moulin et les combattants de l'ombre, dont la jeune Livia traquée par la Gestapo, rappellent que derrière les grandes manœuvres diplomatiques, des vies ordinaires brûlent en silence.
- Le général Leclerc ancre le film dans la réalité des batailles nord-africaines, transformant la vision gaullienne en actes concrets sur le terrain aux côtés des Britanniques.
- Là où le premier volet devait justifier le pari de juin 1940, ce second opus peut enfin mesurer le coût humain de ce pari — et c'est cette profondeur émotionnelle qui lui vaut une note supérieure.
- Baudry réussit le tour de force de porter sa documentation érudite — fondée sur la biographie de Julian Jackson — sans jamais alourdir le récit, maintenant le film dans un souffle constant jusqu'à la Libération.
Dans les années les plus sombres du XXe siècle, un homme refusa de plier — et c'est ce refus que le cinéaste Antonin Baudry a mis six ans à restituer à l'écran. Le second volet de sa saga consacrée à Charles de Gaulle couvre la période 1943-1945, ces années où la France libre n'était encore qu'une idée obstinée portée entre Londres, Washington, l'Afrique du Nord et les caves de la Résistance. Baudry, ancien diplomate nourri de centaines d'ouvrages historiques, offre au spectateur ce que le cinéma contemporain peine souvent à produire : une épopée qui honore la complexité d'un destin sans jamais le réduire à la légende.
La semaine cinéma est dominée par le second volet de la saga de Gaulle signée Antonin Baudry, qui s'impose comme l'aboutissement d'un projet hors norme. Ancien diplomate, Baudry a consacré six ans à une recherche exhaustive pour construire une œuvre qui traite son sujet avec autant de rigueur intellectuelle que de souffle dramatique.
Le premier film retraçait la décision fondatrice de juin 1940 : fuir en Angleterre plutôt que d'accepter l'armistice de Pétain, un choix que beaucoup vécurent comme une trahison mais que Baudry filme comme un acte de résistance solitaire. Simon Abkarian y incarnait de Gaulle avec une conviction sans faille, face au Churchill de Simon Russell Beale.
Ce second volet, couvrant 1943 à 1945, dépasse son prédécesseur. La narration gagne en intimité malgré l'ampleur du propos : de Gaulle doit simultanément composer avec le scepticisme de Churchill, l'hostilité de Roosevelt, l'autorité militaire d'Eisenhower et les ambitions rivales du général Giraud. C'est un portrait de survie politique à l'échelle d'une nation, où chaque compromis menace l'idée même de la France libre.
Baudry tisse dans ce tableau la figure de Jean Moulin et celle de combattants anonymes de l'ombre, comme Livia, personnage de fiction incarné par Anamaria Vartolomei, qui traverse le film sous la menace permanente de la Gestapo. Le général Leclerc, interprété par Niels Schneider, ancre quant à lui la dimension militaire dans les sables d'Afrique du Nord.
Ce qui distingue ce film, c'est sa clarté émotionnelle. Baudry ne détourne pas le regard de la brutalité de l'époque, ni de la part de dureté propre à de Gaulle lui-même. Il en résulte une œuvre rare : un hommage monumental qui reste profondément humain, dédié à un pays et à un homme qui refusa, jusqu'au bout, de renoncer.
This week's cinema offers four distinct paths: a sweeping historical reckoning, a galactic revenge romp, a hand-drawn love elegy, and a Robin Hood stripped of his myth. The standout is the second installment of Antonin Baudry's de Gaulle saga, which arrives in theaters having already proven itself the more assured of the pair.
Baudry, a former diplomat who spent six years reading hundreds of books to construct this project, has made something rare in contemporary film: a historical epic that treats its subject with both grandeur and intellectual rigor. The first film, released earlier this year, traced de Gaulle's June 1940 decision to flee to England rather than accept Marshal Pétain's armistice—a choice many at the time saw as abandonment but which Baudry frames as an act of stubborn resistance. Simon Abkarian carries that first film as de Gaulle with unwavering conviction, supported by Simon Russell Beale's Churchill. The film is lengthy, necessary, and earns its three-and-a-half-star rating by refusing to simplify a complicated historical moment into biography alone.
The second film, which covers 1943 through 1945, surpasses its predecessor. The narrative feels more intimate despite its scope, the timelines sharper, the emotional weight heavier. Abkarian returns as de Gaulle, now maneuvering through a thicket of competing interests: Churchill's skepticism, Roosevelt's outright doubt (played by Campbell Scott), Eisenhower's military authority, wary French politicians, and General Giraud (Thierry Lhermitte), a rival who harbors his own ambitions to lead both army and nation. It is a portrait of political survival conducted at the highest stakes, with the fate of a nation hanging on de Gaulle's ability to navigate between these forces without losing his vision of what he called La France libre—Free France.
Baudry has woven in Jean Moulin, the legendary Resistance leader and de Gaulle's fervent ally, along with underground fighters including a character named Livia (Anamaria Vartolomei) who moves through the film in constant danger of the Gestapo. General Philippe Leclerc (Niels Schneider), fiercely loyal to de Gaulle, anchors the military dimension, proving his mettle in North African battles fought alongside the British. The film draws its historical foundation from Julian Jackson's biography "A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle," and it wears that scholarship lightly—never pedantic, always propulsive.
What distinguishes this second film is its emotional clarity. Where the first film had to establish context and justify de Gaulle's gamble, this one can focus on the human cost of his vision. The battles in North Africa, the political intrigue in London and Washington, the underground resistance in occupied France—all of it converges on a single figure trying to hold together a nation that has been fractured, defeated, and scattered across the globe. Baudry does not flinch from the brutality of the period, nor does he shy away from de Gaulle's own ruthlessness in pursuit of his aims.
The film earns its four-star rating by achieving something increasingly rare: it is both a monumental homage to a historical figure and a genuinely moving portrait of a man wrestling with impossible choices. In an era when historical epics often feel either bloated or sanitized, Baudry has made something honorable—a film dedicated to a country and a leader of genuine vision, flawed but unbending in his commitment to his nation's survival and independence.
Citas Notables
The kind they don't make anymore—honourable, dedicated to his country and a man of great vision— Neptune Ravar Ingwersen, reviewing the second de Gaulle film
Quieres la nota completa?
Lee el original en Le News ↗
Culture & Arts