The conquest

Synopsis

The May 6 , 2007Nicolas Sarkozy, between two phone calls to his wife Cécilia , remembers the past five years.

In 2002 , he returned to the forefront of political life by being appointed Minister of the Interior by the President of the Republic , Jacques Chirac , in the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin .

Gradually, he managed to make a name for himself and decided to prepare to succeed President Chirac in 2007 at the Élysée .

However, he faces major difficulties such as his rivalry with the Foreign Minister , Dominique de Villepin , or the secret idyll of Cécilia with the advertising Richard Attias and his adventure with a journalist, Anne Fulda .

Technical sheet

• Original title: The Conquest
• Director: Xavier Durringer
• Scenario: Patrick Rotman
• Music: Nicola Piovani
• Photography: Gilles Porte
• Editing: Catherine Schwartz
• Artistic direction: Éric Durringer
• Costumes: Jurgen Doering
• Production: Eric Altmayer and Nicolas Altmayer for Mandarin Films ; Gaumont
• Country of origin: France
• Original language: French
• Budget: € 5 million
• Format: Colors – Ratio: 2.39: 1
• Duration: 105 minutes
• Initial distribution companies in theaters:
  •  France : Gaumont
  •  Belgium : Benelux Film Distributors
  •  Canada : E1 Films Canada
• Release dates:
  •  France / Belgium :  May 18 , 2011
  •  Lebanon :September 2011¹
• DVD release dates:
  •  France : September 21 , 2011

Distribution

• Denis Podalydès : Nicolas Sarkozy
• Florence Pernel : Cecilia Sarkozy
• Bernard The Cock : Jacques Chirac
• Hippolyte Girardot : Claude Gueant
• Samuel Labarthe : Dominique de Villepin
• Gregory Fitoussi : Laurent Solly
• Dominique Besnehard : Pierre Charon
• Saida Jawad : Rachida Dati
• Pierre Cassignard : Frédéric Lefebvre
• Michèle Moretti : Bernadette Chirac
• Emmanuel Noblet : Bruno Mayor
• Mathias Mlekuz : Franck Louvrier
• Michel Bompoil : Henri Guaino
• Gérard Chaillou : Jean-Louis Debré
• Nicolas Moreau : Pierre Giacometti
• Yann Babilée : Richard Attias
• Fabrice Cals : Michael Darmon
• Laurent Olmedo : Philippe Ridet
• Bruno Lopez : Jean-François Achilli
• Jean-Pierre Léonardi : Bruno Jeudy
• Laurent Claret : Philippe Rondot
• Dominique Daguier : Jean-Louis Gergorin
• Patrick Rotman : the TV presenter
• Philippe Maymat : a bodyguard of Nicolas Sarkozy
• Gabrielle Atger : the daughter of Cécilia Sarkozy

Production

Choice of actors

To embody Nicolas Sarkozy, the producers and the director had first thought of François Cluzet , who declined proposal ² . For the role of Dominique de Villepin, Lambert Wilson’s name was mentioned.

Home

Output

After being announced for the May 11 , 2011, the theatrical release is postponed May 18 , 2011, in order to maintain exclusivity at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival , for which he appears in the out-of-competition selection.

Critical reception

In France, the film received a mixed criticism. AlloCiné establishes an average score of 2.46 / 5 from 13 titles of the French press ³ .

For Olivier Bonnard, in Le Nouvel Observateur , the film is only “a big TV movie, like Nicolas Sarkozy for dummies ” ⁴ . He reproaches her for “wisely illustrating everything we already knew, like an album of images, with its gallery of actors-look-alikes, and Denis Podalydès in the lead role” ⁴ . Similarly, Antoine Guiral, in Libération , denouncing a film that gives the cartoon “as if each actor had been invited to stick closer to his puppet Puppets ” ⁵ .

Thomas Sotinel, in Le Monde , is also disappointed: “Xavier Durringer has dared to embody a president in office, but the result lacks coherence and is similar to a montage of selected pieces” ⁶ .

Jean-Marc Lalanne for Les Inrockuptibles , opposes the film Caiman of Nanni Moretti and denounces the bias of the film: “In terms of representation, The Conquest opposes anything sarkoziste circus; on the contrary, he plays the game of his buffoonery, lets him dictate the form of the film and even his dramaturgy – which is stalled with accuracy on the storytelling designed by the UMP ” ⁷ .

In a virulent forum published on Rue89 , Julien Santoni denounces a film that “only redoubled Sarkozy’s marketing strategy” ⁸ in which we learn nothing we do not already know.

For Arnaud Hee on Critikat.com “in the field of the desacralization of the function, the current president did the job himself and for a long time, without bothering to wait for this sluggish film. ” ⁹ .

Serge Kaganski , though not enthusiastic, appreciates Sarkozy’s play: “Denis Podalydès answers the question masterfully, embodying a Sarkozy both credible and otherwise, never more histrion than his model” ⁷ .

In a review published in L’Express , Sophie Benamon believes that the film is “well done”, “very well documented” and that it is “the exact story of five years of political life”, as well as “the first film to to decipher what is really a presidential campaign ” ¹⁰ . It also welcomes the interpretation of Denis Podalydès, a “masterly actor performance” at the level of “voice, [de] debit, [of] gestures” ¹⁰ .

Box office

Five days after its release, The Conquest achieved in France 220 000 entries from a total of 281 rooms ¹¹ . the June 9 , 2011, the film counted a little more than 561 000 entries ¹² , a figure lower than the potential of the film if one considers the publicity and the mediatisation which it benefited ¹³ .

Number of total entries in France: 718 641 ^{14 , 15 , 16} .

Distinctions

Appointments

• César nomination for best actor 2012 for Denis Podalydès ;
• César nomination for best supporting actor 2012 for Bernard Le Coq .

Around the film

• Bernard Le Coq and Michel Bompoil , playing respectively Jacques Chirac and Henri Guaino in the film, will reprise their roles in La Dernière Campagne by Bernard Stora in 2013 , a television movie about the opposition between François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy during the 2012 presidential election. .
• There was talk in the preparation of affubler Denis Podalydès a fake nose to accentuate its resemblance to Nicolas Sarkozy, but this idea was rejected before shooting ¹⁷ . The shots began – discreetly – inAugust 2010^{[ ref. desired]} .

Notes and references