From the first minutes of the film, we are bewitched by the beauty of the images and the sumptuous sets of the third feature film by Mariloup Wolfe, Arlette.
Posted at 7:30 a.m.
Arlette Saint-Amour (Maripier Morin), director of a fashion magazine, arrives in a convertible car at the Château Frontenac, where she has an appointment with the Premier of Quebec (Gilbert Sicotte) who offers her the post of Minister of Culture. She accepts.
We then witness her apprenticeship in this pitiless universe where she must very quickly integrate the codes. Because the negative comments following his appointment are numerous and violent. A culture starlet? What new will it bring? “The 100 million that the Minister of Finance promised to artists during the last elections,” replies the new minister, to the great despair of her team. Because we do not attack the powerful and contemptuous Minister of Finance (David La Haye). Even less when it’s a novice who arrives, but who learns very quickly to manipulate and make low blows, a question of survival. Because when you go into the lion’s den, “a lioness doesn’t just roar, it kills,” as Arlette’s press officer (Paul Ahmarani) suggests.
We can obviously draw a parallel between Maripier Morin and the character of Arlette, two women who divide, who play with the power of the image and who take the hits. The phrases from the movie “Are you ready to put your head on the chopping block? or even “You are going to be guillotined in the public square” are particularly resonant.
The host and actress returns to public life with the release of this film in which she plays the main role. Let’s face it, she plays well, just like in The Fall of the American Empire by Denys Arcand. The distribution is impressive, Benoit Brière as a political attaché is very fair, just like Gilbert Sicotte as Prime Minister, Paul Ahmarani as a press attaché and David La Haye as a cruel Minister of Finance. We also appreciated the presence of Micheline Lanctôt as President of the National Assembly and that of Antoine Bertrand, an excellent Leader of the Opposition.
The direction of Mariloup Wolfe is very neat, the images of the director of photography Yves Bélanger, who worked with the late Jean-Marc Vallée and Clint Eastwood, are superb, the costumes, impeccable, and the filming locations, royal, but the film lacks pace. This theatrical political satire is divided into five acts, but the plot is thin – avoiding a tax on books – and drags on. Marie Vien’s screenplay may well create a rich, subdued universe inspired by the court of Versailles, with airs of opera and baroque music, and even if it is full of references to Simone de Beauvoir (“On ne is not born a minister, one becomes one”) or to André Malraux, there are times when one is bored. We put the package on the visual bill and the distribution, but we forgot the plot. The film demonstrates, with elegance, the harshness of the political world and power games, but it deserved more depth.
Drama
Arlette
Mariloup Wolfe
With Maripier Morin, Paul Ahmarani, Gilbert Sicotte
1:58