Le Premier homme (2013)
Directed by Gianni Amelio

Film Review

Three years after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957, the French-Algerian writer Albert Camus met with an untimely death.  Lying in the mud at the site of the car accident in the Burgundy town of Villeblevin where he died was found a manuscript for a book Camus had been working on before his death, a book in which he revisited his childhood in Algeria of the 1920s.  It would be more than three decades before this final work by one of the twentieth century's greatest writers and philosophers would see the light of day, published in 1994 under the title Le Premier homme, having been carefully edited by its author's daughter, Catherine Camus.  This final novel by Camus is significant for two reasons.  Firstly, it is the work in which Camus reveals most about himself; he writes affectionately about his mother and laments the absence of the father he never knew.  More crucially, it is one of the rare occasions on which Camus was able to comment on what was for him the most difficult of subjects, the war in Algeria.  Had the book been completed, it could conceivably have been Camus's masterpiece; as it is, it is a fascinating work that offers a rare insight into a man who was notoriously reticent about himself.

And now we have the film adaptation...  Glug (that's my nearest appoximation to the sound of a sinking heart).  It's an engaging enough production, competently directed by Italian filmmaker Gianni Amelio with a keen attention to period detail, but it suffers from one unpardonnable omission: the voice of Camus is distinctly lacking.  Fearing that her father's book might be subverted for political ends, Catherine Camus was reluctant to allow it to be adapted and it was her decision that a neutral Italian would direct the film.  Unfortunately, Amelio's political ambivalence on the Algerian question comes across as a lack of engagement with his subject matter, and so the film emerges as just another wishy-washy nostalgia piece which loses its way in a maze of well-worn clichés and thereby fails to get across the deeper messages in Camus's text.  Yes, the film does draw the obvious parallel between the writer's childhood and Algeria's past, both containing the seeds of future distinction and trauma respectively, but apart from this there isn't much intellectual muscle to chew on and Le Premier homme ends up being reduced to a pretty run-of-the-mill biopic, an easy watch but hardly a fitting tribute to a great writer.

Albert Camus's very noticeable absence from the piece is at least partly made up for by the presence of Jacques Gamblin, who turns in a creditable performance as the writer's alter ego (the older version), Jacques Cormery.  Gamblin's moody and introspective portrayal evokes something of Camus's sensitive, darker side, although the poetic and politically conflicted aspects of Camus's persona are less convincingly evoked.  Denis Podalydès also merits praise for his rounded and authentic performance as the humanist academic who supposedly inspired Camus in his youth and set him on the path to literary glory.  Lacking Gamblin's charismatic presence, the first half of the film, which focuses on Cormery/Camus's childhood, struggles to hold our attention, despite some impressive production values which provide the most vivid reconstruction of Algeria in the 1920s.  The film only really comes to life when Cormery, now an established writer, returns to his home town and undertakes a personal quest into his own and his country's fractured identity.  Anyone expecting the film to reveal any deep insights into Albert Camus will be disappointed, although it does point us in the direction where such insights may be found: in the incomplete tome that Camus was working on before he was snatched from us in such tragic circumstances.

Film Synopsis

August, 1957.  Having pursued a successful career as a writer for thirty years, Jacques Cormery decides to undertake a pilgrimage to Algiers to visit his mother.  But things have changed a great deal since Jacques' childhood and the city is now ravaged by war.  He recalls his happy school days, his European and Algerian friends, and Monsieur Bernaes, the teacher who guided him towards a life that was inconceivable for someone from such a deprived, uneducated family.  Loyal to his past, Jacques wonders what can be done to reconcile the native Algerians and Pieds-noirs, two peoples who have lived together in peace for so long but who have now become mortal enemies...