The film Arlette by Mariloup Wolfe is tailor-made for controversy. Maripier Morin, still dragging in his bag his past sexual misconduct towards Safia Nolin, indeed plays the main role.
She plays Arlette Saint-Amour, a fashion journalist catapulted into politics by the Prime Minister who, to “rejuvenate” the worn image of his government, appoints her “star” Minister of Culture.
He will also use it as a weapon of massive political seduction to neutralize his all-powerful Minister of Finance, a narcissistic parrot of the business world whose ambition is to succeed the Prime Minister soon.
The choice of Maripier Morin will shock many, empathy being due to his victim. I nevertheless wanted to see the film above all for its subject and its purpose. I was curious about it as a political analyst and also, in another life, as a former adviser to the Prime Minister.
Filmed inside the National Assembly and scripted by Marie Vien, former press officer for the former Minister of Culture, Liza Frulla, ArletteI am convinced, is certainly worth the detour.
Without having the cruel refinement of a Denys Arcand in Comfort and indifference or the daring onirism of a Luc Dionne in Bunker, the circus, Arlette is nonetheless a political fable of exacting complexity.
The picture of power
It deals with the power of the image in politics, and in doing so, with the image of power. The unequal place of women, despite real progress. Political, but often fiercely interpersonal power struggles.
It defends the crucial importance of culture and its artisans, yet the eternal poor relations of government budgets. It openly names neo-liberalism as responsible for the long massacre in our education and health networks.
For anyone who has worked at the top of the Quebec political pyramid, we also recognize some classic character traits of certain chiefs of staff, press attachés, deputy ministers, journalists, etc.
It even shows the compensations which, well beyond their salaries, which are lower than those of any CEO, nevertheless soften the “crazy life” of the ministers and the prime minister. Including their access to the best wines, best restaurants, best hotels, etc.
Redemption and Hope
Paradoxically, Arlette is also a story of redemption and hope. Hope in politics and the people who, when it does, choose it as an agent of positive change. In this, the moral of the fable ofArlette comes in three stages.
First, there are battles that are worth fighting even in the “court of Versailles” – a metaphor in Arlette for the supreme power held by any prime minister in our parliamentary system.
Second, it happens to see “star” recruits show themselves quite capable of doing so, on the condition, however, of having the support of the prime minister. Third, the image in politics, as in life, is often misleading.
In short, as the late Jacques Parizeau said so well: “It’s distressing, politics as a profession, with its complicated interpersonal relationships. I used to say it was an “ocean of toes”. But if you want to change things, it’s inevitable, you have to do politics. »