France Is Living in Denial of Cold Hard Reality

A lengthy, two-part biopic of a mid-century politician would be an unlikely hit in most countries. But not, apparently, if the politician is Charles de Gaulle and the country is France. The films based on Julian Jackson’s 2018 biography of the general have seized the country’s imagination. They opened to a mere 380,000 viewers in their first days of screening, though — like de Gaulle himself — they grew in the telling. More than 5.5 million French people have seen them now.