The Conquest - French Film Festival  CTC

Rating CTC

Release DateSaturday, 31 March 2012

Length 1hrs 45min

Main Cast Denis Podalydès, Florence Pernel, Bernard Le Coq, Hippolyte Girardot, Samuel Labarthe

Movie DirectorXavier Durringer

DistributorFrench Film Festival

This part fictional, part factual biopic gives an account of the rise of President Nicolas Sarkozy to power. The film opens on the night of Mr Sarkozy’s election victory, 6 May 2007.

Flashing back and forth between Sarkozy’s victory and his five years of struggle leading up to this point, Durringer divides the film into two strands. One involves the breakdown of his marriage to Cécilia (Florence Pernel). Considered as one of the people who has strongly participated in Nicolas Sarkozy’s access to the presidency, Cécilia has grown to despise politics subsequently becoming distraught by the state of their lives, which she compares to a reality television show and blames it for the disappearance of her freedom. The second strand reveals Nicolas Sarkozy’s struggle for respect within the Union for a Popular Movement as he is competing with power-hungry peers and with a troublesome, about-to-leave president: Jacques Chirac.

This is a unique look into the life of a man who ultimately gains power, but in the process loses his wife. Denis Podalydès delivers a particularly impressive performance as the President of France.

“Denis Podalydès is in the heart of the metamorphosis: thanks to him, the (political) monster becomes a (hurt) man. A true cinema character” - Télérama