The Great Arch tells the story of Otto von Spreckelsen, a real-life architecture teacher from Copenhagen, who surprised the world when he won an open-call competition launched by French president François Mitterrand. Source: Australian Catholics.
This reviewer enjoyed this film and it immediately bought to mind Jan Utzon and the construction of the Sydney Opera House and the fallout over various decisions which compromised his singular vision.
This is also what happened to Otto von Speckelsen whose design, which he nicknamed The Cube, was selected to be built to complement the historical axis of the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe as an anniversary memorial celebrating the bicentennial of the French Revolution.
Essentially, this is the dramatised true story, based on Laurence Cosse’s 2016 book of the same name.
It tells of von Sprecklesen (Bang) and his unique design and the slow wearing away at his architectural integrity as costs soar, plans are revised and he deals with an intransigent French bureaucracy.
Bang plays this part well. There are elements of ego in his insistence in certain things and later paranoia creeps in when he feels increasingly undermined by his pragmatic construction manager, Paul Andreu (Arnaud), and the apparatchik Sobilon (Dolan) who treads sycophantically around all the stakeholders in the grand project, trying to keep things smooth.
We see von Speckelsen’s wife Liv (Knudsen) as his emotional and business partner in the project. She is no pushover. François Mitterand is played by Fau, who does a good job as someone who wants to promote the great history of France, leave his own legacy and also has some sense of the importance of art and culture wrapped up in the public space.
One of the scenes that spoke of the emotional weight of the project is when von Sprekelsen makes a journey to the quarry in Carrera, Italy, to check on the quality of the marble for the project. He is sold when he is told it is from the same pit out of which the marble came for Michaelangelo’s La Pièta.
Von Sprecklesen sees this project as his life’s work, his mark, and begins to lose heart when external factors diminish his vision.
Review by Ann Rennie, Jesuit Media
The Great Arch: Starring Claes Bang, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Xavier Dolan, Michel Fau, Swann Arnaud. Directed by Stéphane Demoustier. 107 minutes. Rated PG (Mild themes and sexual references.)
FULL REVIEW
The Great Arch (Australian Catholics)
