Last year was a great one for architects on film. Award-winner The Brutalist and the highly controversial Megalopolis depicted fictional architects with grandiose projects. Now The Great Arch, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, tells the story of a real architect who also has a superb, if rather pharaonic. project.
In 1982 French President François Mitterrand launched an open competition to design a new monument in Paris. One that would complete a triangle with the Louvre Museum and Arc de Triomphe. The unexpected winner was Otto von Spreckelsen, a Danish architect and university professor whose entire opus consisted of four churches and a home: his own.
Von Spreckelsen, as imagined by scriptwriter and director Stéphane Demoustier (Borgo), based on Laurence Cosse’s book, is first of all a man of principles, and then a perfectionist architect. Not the most desirable characteristics to deal with real life costs, the French bureaucracy and time constrictions. The moderate and elegant pace of the film allows us to get to know the main character and empathize with him, even when we wonder if 5,000 tons of Carrara marble — coming from the same quarry as Michelangelo’s Pietá — is a bit too much.
The well-calibrated story follows a man on his way to accomplish his life’s dream, until it becomes his obsession. Danish actor Claes Bang gives Von Spreckelsen the physique and the dignity of a man who could argue with Mitterrand at the Elyseum while wearing leather sandals with socks. He successfully portrays someone who is passionate and restrained at the same time.
Demoustier gives all his masculine characters both depth and dimension. All of them, from France´s President to the crane operator, the project manager, or the president’s advisor, have presence and hold our interest. Ironically, the only invented character, the architect´s wife Liv, is almost redundant, even with actor Sidse Babett Knudsen’s best efforts to construct a believable character. Why invent this character? Sometimes she makes her husband look weak, distracted, a dreamer. The film’s most passionate discussions are with architect Paul Andreu (Swann Arnauld), who understands and respects Spreckelsen, but wants above all to have a finished project.
What is worse? Abandoning one’s life project or compromising with less than optimal solutions? The Great Arch asks such personal questions in an architectural way. The dilemmas and possible compromises are shown physically on the construction site, and the perspective is always the designers.
The Grande Arche of La Defénse was inaugurated by Mitterrand on the planned date: the 14th July 1989, the 500th anniversary of the French Revolution. And it is magnificent — even if it is not pink-colored at sunset, as intended by its creator.
Director, screenplay: Stéphane Demoustier
Cast: Claes Bang, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Xavier Dolan, Swann Arlaud, Michel Fau
Cinematography: David Chambille
Music: Olivier Marguerit
Editing: Damien Maestraggi
Sound: Sarah Lelu, Eddie Simonsen, Johannes Rasmus Rose, Julien Sicart Tan-Ham
Production design: Catherine Cosme
Production companies: Ex Nihilo, Zentropa (Denmark ), France 3 (France )
Distribution: Le Pacte
World sales: 105 min
Venue: Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard
In French, English and Danish
