AF French Film Festival 2020 Film Review: Notre Dame

Valerie Donzelli in Notre Dame. Photo: PR Supplied.

Showing at the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival 2020, Notre Dame is a French comedy written, directed and starring Valerie Donzelli (White Knights, 2015).

The narrative begins with a public announcement that in order to boost Parisian morale, the Government is holding a competition to redesign the city’s Notre-Dame esplanade. Maud Crayon (Valerie Donzelli), a single mother and talented-yet-meek architect surprisingly wins the competition despite her daily struggles with a clingy ex-lover, workplace issues with the boss and raising her two growing children. Rather than solving her problems, her victory only brings more challenges to the fore as Maud discovers she is pregnant and in love with her handsome ex-boyfriend Bacchus (Pierre Deladonchamps), while the Notre Dame redesign turns into a public scandal that she has to legally defend.  Can Maud overcome her inner insecurities and bring her personal and professional life back on track, against the odds?

Valerie Donzelli and Pierre Deladonchamps in Notre Dame. Photo: PR Supplied.

The narrative comically goes through the ups and downs of Maud’s life, her need for love and comical errors. As writer-director-star, Donzelli builds in some idiosyncratic moments in the film. She brings in surrealism as Maud’s playground model magically flies by itself to the Notre Dame Competition drop off point.  The characters mostly wear the same outfit throughout the film, perhaps implying that not much changes in their outer world? There is constant slapping of people in public places, adding an undertone of symbolism. Perhaps the freedom and ease of attacking an individual holds as an example of our vulnerability as a society in this fast-paced, digital era. In one scene, Donzelli cleverly weaves in the tendency of the Parisian public to reject new structures, such as the now-iconic Eiffel Tower.  

Given the name of the film, if one expects to see more of the legendary Notre Dame, it may lead to disappointment. However, perhaps the film is one of the last documentations of the monument in its original form.  

Why would one watch Notre Dame? Maybe for its likeable characters, their comic yet touching performances, the idiosyncrasies of a French film or its light-hearted comedy. Although the film doesn’t quite add up to more than the sum of these parts, there is a subtle attractiveness that keeps one engaged for 89 minutes, and one comes away feeling good and mildly entertained. Suitable for a one-time watch.

3/5

Notre Dame is showing at the 2020 Alliance Francaise French Film Festival 2020 from 14 July - 4 August around Australia. More information about the film and screening times can be found here.

Please note that, unfortunately, the festival has been suspended from screening in Melbourne and Ballarat due to the temporary cinema closures as part of the lock-down measures announced by the Victorian Government.