PARIS MADE PERFECT

ARTFUL TELLING OF ICONIC TOWER COMING TO LIFE

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The famous city of love and the equally famous iconic tower symbolize the complicated dynamics of ingenuity, love and humanity in the new industrial era, in Eiffel (2021).

Director Martin Bourboulon tells the story of the Eiffel Tower one piece of history at a time by painting intimate moments with his camera.

Romain Duris stars as civil engineer Gustave Eiffel, with Emma Mackey playing the compelling love interest, Adrienne Bourges, whose romantic involvement with Eiffel brings the story together.

The Paris based civil engineer had been building bridges, train stations and cathedrals around the world before providing the inner engineering structure for the Auguste Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in New York City. The story begins as Eiffel starts to set his sights on the next iconic project.

The film was released in France on October 13, 2021, and has recently been released in theaters in Canada.

Bourboulon makes many of the scenes beautiful portraits filmed in the dark natural lighting of an era before advanced centralized electric lighting.

Cinematographer Matias Boucard accurately creates the emotive effect that emerges when documenting an iconic historical moment. The actors are illuminated in chiaroscuro light in front of dark shadowy backgrounds as the floating smoke from cigarettes reflects light across scenes.

 A compelling narrative is sown together with a music score that creates suspense and intrigue when the dialogue and action in the scene might not be all that compelling, such as Eiffel walking through the site of the tower during the early stages of construction next to the Seine River.

The narrative of the design and construction of the Eiffel Tower is intertwined with Eiffel’s relationship with Bourges.

The love story is ever so gently used as a narrative device for the construction of the tower in the famous city of love by gradually piecing together the relationship with flashbacks in parallel with the tower being assembled one steel girder at a time.

Little intriguing side stories are added such as that of Eiffel’s daughter, Claire, played by Armande Boulanger.

Boulanger shows how an adoring daughter was very much involved in the daily life of her famous father, but her family history remains a mystery. This untold backstory adds to the suspense of the film.

The script also explains how Eiffel is dissuaded from putting his efforts into the construction of the Paris subway, which had not yet begun at the time.

Duris provides a measure of subtlety with his acting art by showing how Eiffel must make rational decisions separate from the emotional narrative seeping into his life. The presence of the love story is a sublime subtlety just as the tower has become to the city of Paris.

Although the love between Eiffel and Bourges may be more inspired from the need in film for dramatized fictions than the truth, the story personifies the all-consuming relationships that artists have with their art.

This beautiful film depicts an important moment in world history, but while the narrative device compels the story forward, the use of fiction to provide the necessary intrigue may not have been the best choice in an otherwise well-known true story.

Bourboulon does a good job in focusing the story on a specific event and an important historical figure, while splashing the story board with just enough sentimentality to maintain everyone’s interest.