Alliance Française French Film Festival 2022 Film Review: Lost Illusions
Images courtesy of Palace Films.
The critic game is a dirty business. Us movie reviewer types are bought off, blackmailing, career-ending mafiosos behind the scenes.
Watching Lost Illusions, the wall was shattered, and the gig was up. Lucein is a poet fallen on hard times, desperate to break into the aristocrat scene but as a poor pauper from the bad precincts, realises that’s just not a possibility in 1820’s France. What does he do to gain influence and muscle his way in anyhow? He switches gigs and starts reviewing plays and literature, selling favour to the highest bidder and sabotaging anyone sorry enough to find themselves on the warpath of ye olden press.
I’ll admit, nothing’s changed. I write glowing reviews for every movie I see because quite frankly my back pocket is well-endowed and straining my lower back with the wads I’ve been collecting from Sony lately. The Melbourne opening night of the 2022 Alliance Française French Film Festival didn’t disappoint on the grease. I was fed good cheese and nice wine, delicate macarons and mildly unpleasant olives. Therefore, by the laws vested in me as a cheap critic looking for his next loaf of freshly baked French bread, I’m glad to declare that Xavier Giannoli’s award-winning smash hit Illusions Perdues (it’s French title because yes, subtitles are a foregone conclusion with this one) is a vivid affair of soul and lust told through the perspective of one of Paris’ most talented writers.
Ok I’ll drop the schtick now, but I was only slightly exaggerating how good Lost Illusions is.
Benjamin Voisin (Lucien) delivered a spectacular performance of a familiar theme; classism from the vantage point of those without wealth, reaching for the stars with vanity and the pursuit of riches. The backdrop of an ‘off with their heads’, post-revolution France paints the dramatic narrative as our protagonist wrestles with inspiration and ethics in an era when the press was just hitting mass production.
It's an educational movie in a way, describing the slimy landscape of a press without limits, and a monopolised publication outfit working in the discretion of politics when the stakes were high enough to whip out a guillotine. Desperation is palpable in the slums while the rich live it up in the plays and ballrooms. Though a lot of the material covered here is generally predictable, the French dialogue and perfectly recreated period sets, costumes and delicacy is wonderfully refreshing.
Lost Illusions is screening at the 2022 Alliance Française French Film Festival across Australia. The festival runs in Melbourne from the 3rd of March to the 6th of April, for tickets and more info click here.