The Last Mitterrand

The president of France is in the last stretch of his term, gravely ill. A young journalist is called in to help him put together his memoirs. The conversations begin: childhood, the war, power, death. The old man answers some questions and slips past others. As he goes on, the journalist sees that there are unexplained places in the past of the man he admires. Robert Guédiguian directed the film from a book about the last months of François Mitterrand, and built it as fiction with the names changed. Michel Bouquet plays the president. The tension at the centre of the film is Mitterrand's past under Vichy and certain friendships after the war; these were argued over in France for a long time. The film gives no answer and leaves the question open.