Rodin (2017)

Directed by: Jacques Doillon | 119 minutes | biography, drama, romance | Actors: Vincent Lindon, Izïa Higelin, Séverine Caneele, Bernard Verley, Anders Danielsen Lie, Arthur Nauzyciel, Laurent Poitrenaux, Olivier Cadiot, Alexandre Haulet, Louise Le Pape, Morgane de Vargas, Nia Acosta, Pauline Cousty, Cendrine Gourbin, Guylène Péan

Biopics about great artists, it remains a tricky business. In the best case scenario, the director knows how to make his film coincide in tone, color and temperament with the portrayed artist. See ‘Amadeus’. Also successful are the biopics in which the director has understood that the artist is only a human being of flesh and blood. At most with a more trained eye or ear and of course with a talent for creation. See ‘Frida’.

At the very bottom of the biopic genre, we find the kind to which the French biography “Rodin” belongs. The kind that the artist sees as a superhuman being, a missing link between man and God. At most, this being pauses for the lowest human pleasures—sex and booze—other than that, he is an artist 24 hours a day. A being that lives in a world of its own, far above ordinary people. A being that never smiles and continuously sprinkles with solemn quasi-prontos. In short, a myth that never existed and never will.

In ‘Rodin’ Vincent Lindon transforms the famous sculptor into such a superhuman artist. We see him toil on his statues and hear him speak like an oracle. He saves his biggest nonsense phrases for muse, pupil and overall troublemaker Camille Claudel, who, even if he refuses to speak normal French, and who maintains a wonderful relationship with her master.

The biopic starts with the budding love between Rodin and Claudel. This reviewer has already forgotten where it ends, because the intervening story really doesn’t captivate anywhere. There is no development whatsoever, not in the story, not in the characters, not in anything at all. Main line is the never palpable love between the two artists, main side line is about a statue of the writer Balzac. There’s no shot in that either. To keep the viewer awake, it is teeming with beautiful naked girls, who of course all fall head over heels for the raunchy old artist.

If the story sucks, the dialogues make it all the more miserable. These are partly used for making announcements to the viewer’s needs, partly for dropping names. The entire French cultural elite passes by without it serving any purpose. When Rodin meets a well-known contemporary, he immediately calls him by his last name, so that the viewer also knows who he is dealing with. And then there’s the voice-over by Rodin, with a voice somewhere between Serge Gainsbourg (‘Je t’aime moi non plus’) and Jan van Veen (‘Candlelight’). The lyrics he uses are of the most pretentious kind, melodious but empty.

Where ‘Amadeus’ is the textbook example of a successful artist’s biography, ‘Rodin’ is the perfect model for what not to do. Sleep-inducing, pretentious and substandard in every way. Only suitable for viewers with a serious sleeping problem.