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FILMS / REVIEWS France / Belgium

Review: Monsieur Aznavour

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- Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade sign a vast biopic full of contrasts about an ambivalent, tenacious and ambitious artist from a penniless immigrant background

Review: Monsieur Aznavour
Tahar Rahim in Monsieur Aznavour

“I want to show them that I’m not negligible material. They haven’t heard the last of Aznavour”, “Whether you like it or not, I am a singer.” To become an artist, manage to make a living with that work and, even better, enjoy immense success, is never easy and, in retrospect, the rise to fame seems to be the consequence of an improbable alignment of planets between talent, work and luck. Such is the singularity of the trajectories of the most brilliant stars, who are also often shaped in the crucible of complex personalities, between shadow and light, such as Charles Aznavour (1924-2018), the man “with 180 millions albums sold, the son of refugees who became a symbol of French culture around the world.”

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It is this prodigious career bringing together childhood dreams and fierce adult ambitions, sometimes incredible adventures amongst fellow creative people, and a perpetually unsatisfied struggle to reach the top, that Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade have taken on in their third feature film, Monsieur Aznavour [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, released in French theatres on 23 October by Pathé and already acquired in 41 international territories. This romantic portrait on the long term joins a lineage of many biopics in the same style (from Walk The Line to Bohemian Rhapsody [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, as well as La Vie en Rose [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Ray, etc.) and relies, like them, largely on the art of temporal ellipses and on its central performance, in this case that of Tahar Rahim.

Structured in five parts (Les Deux Guitares, Sa jeunesse, La Bohème, J’me voyais déjà and Emmenez-moi), the film manages to sketch with very quick strokes the poor childhood in 1930s Paris of Charles Aznavourian, within a happy family of stateless Armenians, before lingering a little longer on the initiatory period of his integration within the circle of French chanson: his meeting and association as a piano-singing duo during the German Occupation with Pierre Roche (a very good Bastien Bouillon), the vampiric protection (“you’re like me, you’re from the streets”) of Édith Piaf (an excellent Marie-Julie Baup), his incursion into New York without a visa, two years in Montreal, romantic and professional break-ups, the auteur/singer dilemma due to seemingly insurmountable obstacles (Charles is not deemed attractive enough and his voice is judged too veiled for a singer, and critics compete in mean xenophobia towards him), taking risks and profound doubts before the long awaited triumph on 2 December 1960 on the stage of the Alhambra. A decade of hits will follow (“I’ve found the Aznavour formula”), with worldwide success propelled by insatiable ambition and the rise to legendary status. Yet behind the seemingly fulfilled artist, the man is suffering…

Carried by intentions of undeniable integrity, Monsieur Aznavour doesn’t lack charm and features some very beautiful, intense sequences (notably concert scenes), which alternate with passages that are slightly less emotionally convincing because more focused on the narrative progression constrained by the very long duration of the story (although the editing is very successful). Yet its biggest point of honesty and, at the same time, its Achilles’ heel, remains Aznavour's personality whose dark side (his obsession with reaching the top of the bill at the expense of everything else) limits the spectator’s empathy, in particular in the last chapter of the story. Tahar Rahim’s performance, at once exceptional and disproportionate much like his model himself evidently was, is another weakness of the film.

Monsieur Aznavour was produced by French outfits Mandarin & Compagnie and Kallouche Cinéma, and co-produced by Pathé, TF1 Films Production and Belgian company Beside Productions, with Logical Content Ventures. Playtime handles international sales.

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(Translated from French)

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