Céline Sallette’s first film “Niki” is illuminated by Charlotte Le Bon in the role of Niki de Saint Phalle

The actress Céline Sallette signs a magnificent feature film which retraces a period in the life of the artist Niki de Saint Phalle.

It is the fashion for biopics which describe the destiny of artists. In 2023, Martin Provost offered his biopic on Pierre Bonnard and Wim Wenders unveiled a documentary dedicated to the visual artist Anselm Kiefer.

Today, it is the director Céline Sallette who presents Nikihis first film. Worn by Charlotte Le Bon, Damien Bonnard, John Robinson and Judith Chemla, it won over critics at the Cannes Film Festival. In theaters, October 9, 2024.

It is on a very specific period in the life of her heroine that Céline Sallette has chosen to focus the spotlight. The story begins in the 1950s, Niki (Charlotte Le Bon) fled the United States. Married to the American writer Harry Mathews, the young woman has a series of small film roles and modeling contracts. They love each other freely, but Niki’s demons regularly resurface in her nights. To the point that she keeps dozens of knives and weapons under her bed.

Her husband is worried and decides to take her to see a psychiatrist. She will remain interned in Nice hospital for several weeks. At the time, psychiatric disorders were treated with electroshock, but speech remained inhibited. However, Niki retains deep trauma within herself. As a child, the little girl was raped by her father.

“I was lucky enough to encounter art because I had, on a psychological level, everything it took to become a terrorist. Instead, I used the gun for a good cause, that of of art.”

Niki de Saint Phalle

artist

From incomprehension to awareness to combat, Céline Sallette describes in three chapters the way Niki de Saint Phalle comes to life. “For months, I read, listened, studied testimonies of incest and it shocked me. Camille Kouchner, Charlotte Pudlowski, Christine Angot, Neige Sinno and so many others… Since this hell, Niki survives before reborn. She is an example”, explains the director.

Canadian actress Charlotte Le Bon gracefully dons the beautiful costumes and torments of the artist. Although Niki often sinks into depression, she puts her rage at the service of her art and her fights.

Céline Sallette’s direction delicately follows the gradual hatching of this butterfly. Like a kaleidoscope in which several reflections are superimposed, the real Niki is fully revealed thanks to the artists of the movement of New Realism that she rubs shoulders with in Impasse Ronsin, in Paris.

In this workshop, Brancusi, Yves Klein, Max Ernst, Arman and more than fifty artists come to create in a spirit of contemplation, dialogue and celebration. It’s Above all, the meeting with Jean Tinguely (Damien Bonnard) and his wife Eva (Judith Chemla) will be decisive. With Tinguely, she evokes her passion for the colorful sculptures of Gaudí, with Eva, she allows herself to let the tears of her sorrow flow. The couple brings her gentleness and the conviction that she is an artist in her own right. Thanks to them, she frees herself from the gaze of conventional gallery owners and invents a new way of creating.

Gender : Biopic
Director: Celine Sallette
Scenario : Céline Sallette and Samuel Doux
With : Charlotte Le Bon, Damien Bonnard, John Robinson, Judith Chemla
Country : France
Duration : 1h38
Exit : Shortly
Synopsis: Paris, 1952, Niki has settled in France with her husband and daughter, far from a suffocating America and family. But despite the distance, Niki finds herself regularly shaken by reminiscences of her childhood which invade her thoughts. From the hell that she will discover, Niki will find in art a weapon to free herself.