Directors: Grand Corps Malade, Mehdi Idir
Writers: Grand Corps Malade, Mehdi Idir
Stars: Tahar Rahim, Bastien Bouillon, Marie-Julie Baup
Synopsis: Follows the beginnings of the iconic French-Armenian singer, songwriter and actor, Charles Aznavour, from zero to fame.
The first half of Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir’s Monsieur Aznavour is punishing to watch. Lethargically paced, the directorial duo known for 2016’s Patients, which was in turn based on Grand Corps Malade’s accident, slowly track the beginnings of singer/songwriter Charles Aznavourian (Tahar Rahim) in a safe, linear, and rather unremarkable light. Born into an Armenian family with a talent for showmanship, Charles desires to become known as a large-scale figure in French music, as massive as Édith Piaf (Marie-Julie Baup) or Charles Trenet (Dimitri Michelsen).
We don’t spend much time with him as a child, but quickly cut to him wanting to make a name for himself through his partnership with pianist Pierre Roche (Bastien Bouillon), who sees something in Charles Aznavour (the name he now dubs himself as) that others don’t. For once, his physical demeanor doesn’t posit him as charming enough (there are garish displays of de-aging in its opening sections), and his voice is too raspy to soar as the likes of Piaf or Trenet. He gets frequently mocked either by the public or critics, who aren’t too pleased with his arrival in the world of show business. But his songwriting is so unlike anything in the sphere right now that he becomes a tantalizing figure for Piaf herself, who gives him a chance with Roche to open her shows.
All of this is treated with the same contrivances that most biopics, unfortunately, fall prey to; facile explanations to make the audience understand how Aznavour ditched his complete name (it had to rhyme, of course, a primer to what he’ll eventually be writing about), lapses in time to showcase his most soaring moments, and, in the case of musical biopics, his greatest hits inserted into the picture to make the audience point and clap at the screen when they recognize their favorite songs. There are also a number of impressive montages from a visual perspective, such as the one that tracks the Liberation of France in World War II (others, with an anachronistic Dr. Dre needle drop worthy of Baz Luhrmann, not so much). However, it sadly doesn’t do the movie any favors, even if Rahim and Bouillon impress the screen with the shoddy material they’re given.
In fact, the only moment that had a massive reaction from me (and the entire audience watching it at the Cinemania Festival in Montreal) was when Piaf told the duo they would have to gain experience singing away from New York before making their mark on the Big Apple. And where do you think they went? Montreal, of course! Even better, we see the two sing at the Quartier Latin…where the movie was screened. To say that there was thunderous applause as soon as this happened would be an understatement. But as explained by Grand Corps Malade during a post-screening Q&A with Idir, Rahim, actor Christophe Favre, alongside producers Jean-Rachid Kallouche and Arnaud Chautard, the movie had to screen here, or else it wouldn’t feel right. This entire event felt incredibly symbolic and celebratory, but not regarding the movie itself.
It was at that point that I began to worry that the film would stay this way, offering no insight into things we didn’t know before about Aznavour’s life. We all know he was doomed to fail and overcame all expectations. I’m not entirely familiar with Aznavour, and yet I know this because this is stuff he’s recounted before in countless interviews. The film’s first half never strays away from this. His early life was challenging. He lived in poverty with his family and risked everything to help his father hide several Armenians and Jews during World War II (one of the movie’s most harrowing scenes sees him almost get caught by the Nazis when his father’s name is publicized).
But as he begins to experience success for the first time after desperately trying (and failing) for so long, the movie changes. As Aznavour sings Je m’voyais déjà, his first considerable success, an autobiographical portrait of sorts on his trial and tribulations, he experiences a profound shift in how the people around him perceived him and how he’s finally figured out “the Aznavour formula.” This means leaving his entire family behind to devote his whole career to perfecting his intricate rhymes, churning out song after song without any break, and, hopefully, gaining the same salary as Frank Sinatra (Rupert Wynne-James) in the process.
Perhaps this may alienate viewers looking for a more upbeat portrait of the artist. But Aznavour’s sacrifices greatly impacted his friendships (notably, with Pierre Roche) and family. The most tragic of all was the suicide of his son, Patrick, whom he never connected with after learning of his existence when he was eight years old. He spent so much time creating for other people to attain wealth that he forgot the most essential part of living as a human being: connecting with people closest to him.
A tragic portrait begins to unfold, and we now perceive what we initially saw as a traditional ‘rise’ portion of a biopic rather than a prelude to unfathomable loneliness. He wants to become more famous than the Pope but forgets to stop and think for a bit. As a result, when he gets the wealth and fame he’d always wanted, he has no one to share this wealth with.
Aznavour has fully distanced himself from Roche, who can’t reach the same level of fame as his ‘best friend,’ and he has no tangible relationship with his kids. He actually pushes away the ‘love of his life,’ Ulla Thorsell (Petra Silander), after telling him he cannot marry because he’s too devoted to his work. And he can’t even realize how wrong he is here. He’s always working, always writing, always singing, always composing, always doing something other than the ones supposed to matter the most in his life. As prosperous as he now is, he’s not fulfilled by this skyrocketing success and may never be.
Aznavour died a few weeks after performing for the last time in Osaka, Japan. He never stopped working, even at 94. He never stopped to look around for a time and breathe. Because when he does, the longing realization that he’s alone crawls back onto him. This is all deftly conveyed through a career-best performance by Rahim (yes, better than his star-making turn in Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet), his most subtle yet. His eyes and posture tell a different story than his voice and desire for a fruitful professional life.
The most evident illustration of this occurs during Patrick’s funeral. Aznavour finally has to think about what his choices have caused him (the fact that he never talked to him more than a fleeting conversation, or at least cared to check on him occasionally to ensure he’s doing well further alienated their relationship and caused him to undergo an impossible to overcome depression). But his face voluntarily avoids this confrontation: he would perform at the Olympia in the evening and then stay with his family to reflect on Patrick’s life.
How his body language disassociates itself completely to prevent him from wrestling with his professional endeavors is staggering and quietly blows you away. The prosthetics (and de-aging) are semi-distracting, but it doesn’t take long for Rahim to transcend the digital and physical limitations his character is subjected to. He’s always in complete control of the camera, leading us to the singer’s anguish that were implied through the real-life artist’s body language, but are now fully formed within Rahim’s understanding of the man.
That’s how good he is (and one hell of a redemption arc from a historically awful ADR-heavy performance in S.J. Clarkson’s Madame Web), leading up to a finale so utterly devastating it sets the stage for the remainder of his “successful” life. Cinematographer Brecht Goyvaerts represents these moments of pure torment through a deft use of shadows. The audience who watches Aznavour in public sees a larger-than-life artist who sings some of the most authentic songs in France and the world. But the audience who watches the movie sees him in a far different light, always hiding his true self beneath silhouettes. They reveal something he does not want us to see, and Goyaverts (by way of Rahim) exposes them for all of us to confront.
Success is but an illusion. You can attain riches or a prosperous career, become a millionaire, and have anything you desire on a silver platter and still be unhappy. Aznavour has never realized (or thought about) this until he calls his sister, Aïda (Camille Moutawakil), and asks, “What’s next?” after attaining every single goal he set out to accomplish since he was a child. One can figure out “what’s next,” and that’s why Grand Corps Malade and Idir stopped the biopic there. They’ve shown that Charles Aznavour has defied the odds against him, has proved every single critic wrong, and has become one of the most recognizable, if not the most iconic, figures in French music, whose songs have transcended eras and will always be remembered by everyone as long as this planet circulates. In his late 40s, he’s achieved everything he wanted to do, with so much financial reward to show for it. But at what cost?
“Hier encore, j’avais 20 ans
je gaspillais le temps
en croyant l’arrêter
et pour le retenir
même le devancer
je n’ai fait que courir
et me suis essouflé.”
//
“Just yesterday, I was twenty,
I was wasting time
Thinking I could stop it
And to hold it back
Even get ahead of it
I just ran
And ran out of breath.”
