“Notre

The film presented by Jérôme Garcin

It is a fiction built around the fire which, on April 15, 2019, ravaged the cathedral of Paris. A cigarette butt thrown into the frame being repaired, the fire spreading very quickly, the roof in flames, the spire of Viollet-le-Duc collapsing and the firefighters making their way through the crowd on the quays to witness the disaster. The film, shot partly in the cathedral of Bourges, also in the basilica of Saint-Denis, financed by François Pinault, patron of the restoration of Notre-Dame, tells how the heroic firefighters will do everything to save what can be saved. A disaster film in the truest sense.

For Xavier Leherpeur, “the director films his own cinematographic fire”

It’s been a long time since the critic and producer of the program “Une Heure en Séries” on France Inter had been so suffocated after watching a film which, according to him, lacks a lot of breath, and which constantly struggles to find what else he can film to bring the show to life:

It’s the double penalty: Notre-Dame burned down and, in addition, Jean-Jacques Annaud films his fire.

“No pot for Paris cathedral becoming the star of a disaster film… It’s very weird, because the film can look breathtaking in some fire scenes, but there’s never really any breath, d ‘where a film wrapped up in a screenplay that fills the spaces, especially since there aren’t that many things to film… Once we filmed the firefighters on top of each other on small stairs in spiral, it fills the space with a scenario of a deep debility, punctuated with dialogues of tourists.

Then comes a Fort Boyard side, in this kind of chase to open this safe which contains the relic of Jesus Christ. This made me scream with laughter, especially since this frantic quest is completed by an absolutely extraordinary plan: this monk who, after having saved the consecrated hosts, goes out and gives us the impression of walking on water like Jesus Christ, as if to give a spiritual vision…

I really prayed that I would be evacuated quickly, and by good firefighters, preferably.

If “the fire is very well filmed”, Eva Bettan regrets “the lack of emotional effervescence”

If she had the impression of experiencing the fire as if she were inside the cathedral, Eva finds that the film struggles to convey the distress felt by the witnesses on the same day:

“The fire, the real one, we saw it from the outside. We saw it on television, but the first feeling, when we watch this film, is to wonder if we have the impression to experience the fire as it could have really happened.

If there is a real technical feat, through which the film really gives us the feeling of living the fire, I find that it unfortunately fails to express the intensity of the drama that it represented. We feel very little distress, desolation, or helplessness.

He wants to stick to the truth, but for that, it would have been necessary to integrate a greater freedom of fiction, a more documentary vision which can bring more than the fire itself.

Michel Ciment found it “exciting”

Michel Ciment was quite amazed by the quality of the film and by the reconstruction of the fire:

“While this director almost always suffers from critical attacks – because he is someone who tries singular things, who is daring – I found the film fascinating. Even if, in fact, it lacks a few individual stories, as disaster films often do, to bring more life to the film.

It’s a film that mixes archival documents and reconstituted scenes with great brio.

Sophie Avon deplores “a film without grace”

While she admits the film is very daring, it remains bereft of grace and a better narrative, as she feels that “once you get rid of the strong impression that the film can make, you wonders what he wanted to tell us?Because if it’s to simply review the facts, it’s not interesting if he doesn’t do something else with them.

This fire, he does nothing about it and says nothing about it.

We have the impression that he wanted to try to capture something of the order of spirituality, but we are entitled to clumsiness, coarse things, like the bells which beat at full speed in slow motion; the tear that runs down the statue… It’s unforgivable for a film of this caliber”.

The technical side is very impressive, but it’s completely ruined by this desperate attempt to film spirituality.

The film

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