'The Conquest' directed by Xavier Durringer
French President Nicolas Sarkozy gets the Napoleon treatment with The Conquest. Luckily for Xavier Durringer it’s not the Emperor who is running France anymore so he will keep his head after making this film. Sarkozy would make Bonaparte proud. Not only did the current French President score former model and sexpot Carla Bruni, but he is quite the ambitious one. Fortunately for Sarkozy, he has the help of his entourage and he appears to not have the mania that the Corsican General suffered from and lead him to his exile.
The Conquest is a dramatic biopic of Sarkozy from 2002 to his election in 2007. Following the government of Chirac, Sarkozy seized his chance to lead the Gallic nation. The film reveals how much Sarkozy’s political aspirations were blatant to all those who knew him. Chirac had anointed Dominc de Villepin but Sarkozy didn’t care. He wanted to be President with the same single minded focus that pushed Napoleon to rewrite the borders of Europe in his day. Sarkozy is prone to emotional outbursts and the same shifting intensity of his imperialistic predecessor from centuries ago. However, his team of handlers are able to craft Sarkozy’s ascent with enough polish to win the French election in 2007. The film outlines all of this in a very dramatic fashion.
Sarkozy's then-wife, his second, acts as one of his advisors but Cecilia’s contributions to his rise are meaningless once Italian Carla Bruni shows up. Bruni, too old to model anymore, saw her next career step as becoming France’s First Lady. Bruni had good timing on her side when Cecilia runs off with a French advertising executive. Sarkozy’s quick marital rebound was remarkable. One can’t help but notice the parallels between Napoleon and Josephine and Nicolas and Carla. Sarkozy is also short and appears to have a Napoleon complex because of it. Carla is taller than her husband as was Josephine. The similarities continue in that Josephine had also been a mother prior to meeting Napoleon. Same for Bruni but the current French First Lady was able to give her President a child after he came to office.
If the British have The Iron Lady as a modern political saga, then the French have the much sexier The Conquest. They are French after all.