De Gaulle: Résistance (2026)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
June, 1940. France collapses and signs the armistice. In the midst of the chaos, one man refuses to give up. Alone against the odds, this unknown general flees to London to save what remains of freedom. Without an army, without backing, without hope. But with one irrational conviction - France, his France, has not laid down arms. Taking the ultimate gamble, he seeks to convince the world that the battle for France is neither over, nor lost. Reality, however, is unyielding and seems determined to prove him wrong. Yet, little by little, resistance fighters, rebellious students and determined soldiers rise up in England, France and Africa to join the cause. Their faith, audacity and thirst for freedom defy what history seemed to have written in advance. - Actors:
- Simon Abkarian, Simon Russell Beale, Florian Lesieur, Benoît Magimel, Loïc Corbery, Anamaria Vartolomei, Niels Schneider, Karim Leklou, Tom Mison, Kacey Mottet Klein, Grégoire Colin, Pablo Cobo, Campbell Scott, Mathieu Kassovitz, Félix Kysyl, Maxime Bailleul, Chaïm Feroleto, Daniel Betts, Anthony Calf, John Light
- Directors:
- Abel Lanzac
- Producers:
- Jérôme Seydoux, Axelle Boucaï, Ardavan Safaee
- Voiced By:
- Ciaran Cresswell
- Writers:
- Abel Lanzac, Julian T. Jackson, Bérénice Vila
- Aka:
- La bataille de Gaulle: L'âge de fer / De Gaulle: Tilting Iron / La Bataille de Gaulle - partie 1: L'Age de Fer
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Drama
- Countries:
- France
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Reviews (1) of De Gaulle: Résistance
I'd Have Walked Straight Into the Sequel - De Gaulle: Résistance review by griggs
France collapses in about ten minutes; Charles de Gaulle spends the next two and a half hours refusing to accept the paperwork. That's essentially the plot, and it completely gripped me — the time absolutely flew.
Baudry plays it like a proper political thriller: broadcasts, backroom rows, arguments over who gets to speak for a defeated country. Simon Abkarian's de Gaulle is stiff-backed, prickly and faintly absurd, utterly convinced he embodies France, while Simon Russell Beale's Churchill spends half the film wanting to throttle him and the other half wanting to embrace him.
I know the period fairly well, and this still taught me plenty about just how improvised Free France was — a country stitched together with a BBC microphone and sheer bloody-mindedness. The film plainly thinks de Gaulle was magnificent, but it's sharp enough to see the comedy in him too.
Africa is where the film falls down. The continent keeps Free France alive, but it never quite treats Africans themselves as more than scenery — French officers get the close-ups, everyone else gets the wide shot. It's also unmistakably part one of something bigger. Even so, for a film about committees and paperwork, I was thoroughly entertained — and I'd have walked straight into the sequel if it had been running next door.