THE “WORLD’S” OPINION – NOT TO BE MISSED
Launched by producer Dimitri Rassam, the series of film adaptations of Alexandre Dumas’ novels evokes the way in which American cinema defended itself, in the 1950s, against the rise of television. The strategy consisted of reinvesting the experience of the theater thanks to a rediscovered monumentality: big subjects, big budgets, grandiose formats (CinémaScope). An era that can remind us of our own, as the French cinema industry is shaken by a whole bunch of mutations and well-anchored fatalisms: the eternal polarization between auteur cinema and popular cinema, the fragmentation of the public and the anthropological shift initiated by the platforms, folding the spectator’s experience into the domestic sphere.
And who better than Dumas to “rearm” French cinema? Placed under the patronage of one of the most widely read and cinematic novelists, the “French blockbuster” was born, a vehicle for a reinvigorated French star system and a very French way of creating a film.
This is what was already appreciated in the first part of the Three Musketeerss by Martin Bourboulon (2023): the large table of actors from all backgrounds and, from the sets to the costumes, the exquisite work of a myriad of artists and technicians. The film was like a great vintage or a piece of haute couture. We came away with the chauvinistic pride of having tasted a work that we owe – for once – not to Hollywood, but to “French excellence”.
Intoxication of revenge
Without being a tidal wave, the formula hit the mark, with 3.3 million spectators for the first part of the Three Musketeers, and 2.5 million for the sequel focused on the character of Milady – from one to the other, a predictable loss of spectators. Collected in a single film, the adaptation of Monte Cristo takes another risk because it extends over nearly three hours, a repulsive length, rarely achieved by a French film. Let us immediately salute the audacity, which could only be backed by a great star, and undoubtedly the most beloved actor of his generation: Pierre Niney. On the screenplay and direction, Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière attack the beast head-on, a serial novel of more than 1,500 pages, a story of metamorphosis, the quintessence of the revenge story woven with moral education.
We are in 1815, at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVIII, the Bonapartists are then the enemies of the power in place. The story follows the journey of Edmond Dantès, a simple sailor who, returning from a trip aboard the ship Pharaoh, is preparing to marry his beautiful Catalan fiancée, Mercédès, while an act of bravery makes him named captain. Man is on the verge of embracing untouched happiness when he becomes the victim of a plot hatched by relatives who make him appear to be a dangerous Bonapartist. He lost everything and found himself sent to the dungeons of the Château d’If where he spent fourteen years.
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