There are few better places in Brighton to watch a film about history than the Duke of York’s Picturehouse. Sitting proudly at Preston Circus, this wonderfully eccentric Grade II-listed cinema has been welcoming audiences since 1910 and is the UK’s oldest purpose-built cinema. With its Edwardian façade, intimate auditorium, balcony, cosy atmosphere and unmistakable giant striped legs perched on the roof, the Duke’s possesses a character that modern multiplexes simply cannot reproduce. It feels less like entering a cinema and more like stepping into Brighton’s cinematic history.
It was therefore the perfect setting for De Gaulle: Résistance, Antonin Baudry’s magnificent first instalment of his two-part portrait of Charles de Gaulle.
Simon Abkarian is superb as de Gaulle, capturing both the extraordinary physical presence and almost monumental self-belief of the future French leader. He is proud, difficult, imperious and occasionally infuriating — but beneath that formidable exterior lies an unshakeable conviction that France must never accept defeat.
The film brilliantly recreates the chaos following France’s collapse in 1940, as de Gaulle escapes to London, establishes the Free French movement and attempts to persuade Britain and America that Vichy does not represent the French nation. The relationship with Winston Churchill, played with enormous charm and authority by Simon Russell Beale, is one of the film’s greatest pleasures. Their confrontations, mutual irritation and reluctant admiration provide both humour and genuine dramatic tension.
From wartime London to Africa and the extraordinary Battle of Bir Hakeim, the film has genuine epic scale. The cinematography is sumptuous, the battle sequences are thrilling, and Volker Bertelmann’s stirring score gives the story an appropriately grand emotional sweep.
What makes De Gaulle: Résistance particularly compelling is that it presents its hero not simply as a flawless legend, but as a complicated, stubborn and fascinating human being.
Watching this extraordinary film in the historic Duke of York’s was a memorable experience. Cinema and history came together perfectly — and I left feeling that I had witnessed something genuinely special.
