THE DIVINE SARAH BERNHARDT Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Guillaume Nicloux
Stars: Sandrine Kiberlain, Laurent Lafitte, Laurent Stocker, Amira Casar, Pauline Etienne, Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet, Arthur Mazet, Mathilde Olliver, Sebastien Pouderoux.
With a career spanning some 60 years Sarah Bernhardt was an actress who appeared on stage and in silent films and was recognised around the world. She began her career in 1872. She toured through Europe and the US extensively. She was, at one stage, the highest paid actress in the world. She took lovers of both sexes and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle filled with excess and parties. But beyond these little tidbits this biopic of the actress offers very little in the way of insight or depth and indeed doesn’t do much to inform us of why she was “divine”.
The bulk of the film, written by Nathalie Leuthreau (Holiday, etc), seems to concentrate on her long, passionate love affair with fellow actor Lucien Guitry. The film offers up a mix of fact and fiction and even serves up several anachronisms.
The film opens in 1915 with Bernhardt having her right leg amputated at the age of 70. While recuperating, she is visited by her former lover fellow actor Lucien Guitry (Laurent Lafitte, from the recent epic production The Count Of Monte Cristo, etc), allowing her an opportunity to reflect back on her life and her triumphs and love affairs. Through a series of lengthy flashbacks we get to see her lavish lifestyle, and the centrepiece of the film seems to centre around a lavish party that was attended by Sigmund Freud amongst other notable guests.
The film is dialogue heavy with little in the way of real drama. The pacing from director Guillaume Nicloux (The Kidnapping Of Michel Houelleberg, etc) is rather languid and lacks any sense of urgency. Nicloux adopts a non-linear approach to the material as he explores three key periods in Bernhardt’s life – the years 1915–16, 1896, and 1886–1896. However, the production values are superb, with the sets, costumes and period detail all capturing the decadence of the era. And Kiberlain is nicely aged across the thirty-year time span through great use of makeup. Yves Cape’s cinematography is gorgeous and gives the film its impressive visual surface.
Sarah Bernhardt has been played on screen several times before, most notably by Glenda Jackson in the 1976 biopic The Incredible Sarah. Sandrine Kiberlain is good in the role of Bernhardt, giving a brash, passionate, committed and bold performance that captures her haughty attitude, her flighty personality, and demanding nature. She is presented here as a free spirited, independent woman ahead of her time. And it is Kiberlain’s performance that stands out here. Lafitte is more restrained as Guitry. Laurent Stocker (from The President’s Wife, etc) brings a wounded dignity to his role as Pitou, her put upon servant.
During the end credits there is some archival footage and old sepia-toned photographs that give us a glimpse of the real Bernhardt. And there is also some footage of her funeral, in which her cortege was watched by some 600,000 people who lined the streets of Paris.
But overall, The Divine Sarah Bernhardt is a major disappointment. An actress of her stature and fame surely deserved better than this.
★★
