the biopic of Florence Arthaud, the first sincere film of someone close to “the little bride of the Atlantic”

Géraldine Danon, close friend of Florence Arthaud and actress, dedicates her first production to the impetuous and victorious sailor of the Route du rhum in 1990, who made her famous. The family of “the little bride of the Atlantic”, particularly through the voices of her brother and sister, continues to vilify the film, accusing it of tarnishing its image. Biopic, not endorsed by the family, Flo is a fiction film inspired by true events, not a documentary. It makes you think of Sagan Diane Kurys, the personalities of the writer and the navigator overlapping. Romantic and adventurous characters. The best thing is to go and judge on the spot, in the theaters, from Wednesday November 1st.

Angel and demon

At a very young age, Florence (Stéphane Caillard) acquired a taste for the sea by learning to pleasure. Rising through the ranks as a competitor, she suffered a serious car accident that could have cost her her career and her life at age 17. Barely on her feet, she takes on the greatest maritime challenges, cuts ties with her family and joins the world of sailors in which she is like a fish in water. Between drinking, virile loves and marine passion, Flo will become the most famous sailor in the world, a legend of the sea.

The biopic is always between fiction and reality, and a warning before each film warns of liberties taken with the subject. The reactions of the Arthaud family to the vision of Flo were so vehement that they obstruct the qualities and defects of a film. If he doesn’t want to “objective”, it projects the sincere vision of the director: that of all the excesses of a close friend, passionate and brilliant navigator, angel and demon. So, a storm in a glass of water?

Without genius but sincere

It’s always tricky to tackle a legend. That of Florence Arthaud is crossed by epic moments which made her waltz with death more than once. His car accident, her excessive consumption of alcohol, her internal hemorrhage in the open sea, her fall into the ocean alone… Until it caught her in a helicopter accident in 2015, at 57 years old. Flo burned the candle at both ends. Géraldine Danon’s film transmits this furious fiber, this thirst for life, for intense experiences, whether facing the sea, in alcohol, in love and in sex. Sailors are not seen as models of sobriety or abstinence. The director films all this without genius, but effectively.

These escapades are part of the Florence Arthaud legend. John Ford said “between legend and reality, I choose legend”. It nevertheless remains that in Flothe famous scene of the car accident which opens the film presents her as a “pochette”, responsible for the crash. Contrary to what his brother says, who was driving : she was not drinking at the time and was in the back seat. Embarrassing. This kind of shortcut is common, but here the limit is perhaps pushed a little too far. Is it so serious? Isn’t the problem worse in this voyeurism inherent to any biopic? Cinema and voyeurism go hand in hand, but when it comes to privacy, the red line maybe crossed. The beautiful last shot of the film, where Flo floats on a sea that merges with the field of stars that it reflects, suggests that from up there, the celestial navigator must be laughing about it. A magnificent character.

The sheet

Gender : Biopic
Director: Geraldine Danon
Actors : Stéphane Caillard, Alison Wheeler, Alexis Michalik
Country : Francid
Duration : 2:05
Exit : November 1, 2023
Distributer : Metropolitan FimExport

Synopsis: Known as “the little bride of the Atlantic”, Florence Arthaud was above all a great sailor. His exceptional record, and unique in this male universe, reached its peak with his victory in the Route du rhum in 1990. Beyond these exploits, Flo tells the incredible destiny of a fiercely free woman who – after a road accident that almost cost her her life – decides to reject her bourgeois environment and the life that had been mapped out for her, to fully live her dreams.