aixcentric

It’s easy to take the Eiffel Tower for granted – it’s been part of the Parisian landscape for over 100 years now.  What is there new to say about it?  We all know how the competition to mark the 1889 Paris World Fair ended, so no tension there.

But knowing how things ended up doesn’t stop a skilled film director digging into a story and finding new perspectives and creative angles.  Thinking here of ‘Eddie the Eagle’ (how the underdog UK ski-jumper got to the Olympics in the first place) and ‘Sully’ (the pilot’s skilful Hudson landing being only the start of his challenges).

This film tells the story of Gustav Eiffel, an ingenious designer and engineer, who had already produced the interior skeleton of the Statue of Liberty as well as numerous buildings and bridges.  He really wanted to design a station for the new Metro, but was persuaded to enter the competition.  His tower was to be the tallest in the world, built right next to the waters and sand-banks of the Seine, and capable of withstanding the fiercest of winds.  Risks galore.

Actor Romain Duris who plays the lead role explained that Eiffel was the Steve Jobs of his day: “He made it look easy, like a children’s game. A bit like Jobs, who had the intelligence to think of his computers as almost like toys that anyone could use. Eiffel fabricated the tower in sections in gigantic warehouses in Paris, and really assembled it as if it were a game for children with numbered pieces.”

(Very interesting article here: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/aug/11/romain-duris-french-actor-interview-gustave-eiffel

It must have been a challenge to film such scenes and the reconstruction of the construction is fascinating, even if you don’t know a bolt from a rivet.

Human interest is added by flashbacks to romantic scenes between a young Gustav and beautiful passionate Adrienne whose marriage was forbidden by her bourgeois father.  We are led to believe that he subsequently poured his heart into his work, the tower being its ultimate expression.  How true this is we don’t know, though Adrienne did exist. Some critics have written that this angle was unnecessary as the narrative of the construction provides sufficient drama…you decide!

‘Eiffel’ is on general release this month in the UK and Australia, after its launch in France autumn 2021.  Watch out for streaming or DVDs, for an entertaining/informative two hours viewing.