Martin Bourboulon’s film Eiffel, whose press screening took place on Tuesday, October 5 at the French Institute in Casablanca, will be screened from Wednesday October 13, at the same time as France, in Moroccan cinemas.
Eiffel from reality to fiction, is therefore to be discovered at Megarama Casablanca, Cinéatlas Rabat, Megarama Rabat and Renaissance Rabat cinema, indicates the French Institute of Morocco.
We learn from the synopsis of the film that having just finished his collaboration on the Statue of Liberty, Gustave Eiffel is at the peak of his career. The French government wanted him to create something spectacular for the Universal Exhibition of 1889 in Paris, but Gustave Eiffel was only interested in the metropolitan project.
Everything changes when he crosses paths with his youthful love. Their forbidden relationship inspires her to change the Paris skyline forever.
Although this film is not a “biopic” and even less a documentary, the film crew has made a point of remaining in a historical reality as fair as possible and the most factual, explains the press kit of the film, noting that hundreds of documents have been studied, historians have been consulted in order to have a realistic base of the events surrounding the life of Gustave Eiffel.
The documents of the time teach us as well as:
• Gustave Eiffel had a great passionate love affair with Adrienne Bourgès when he was building “La Passerelle St-Jean” in Bordeaux. He was 28 at the time and she was 18 when they met.
• While a marriage was announced, it was canceled by decision of Adrienne’s parents.
• While preparing for the Universal Exhibition of 1889, Gustave refused the metal tower project proposed by his engineers. Despite their insistence, he doesn’t want to hear about it.
• Nevertheless, he will end up changing his mind without explanation and launching himself into the crazy project of a 300m tower in the middle of Paris, even if it means mortgaging all his property to carry the project to the end.
The premise of the film is therefore that the destinies of Gustave and Adrienne crossed again at that time. Is it true ? Is this fiction? As we knew that Gustave and Adrienne had seen each other again since Gustave’s son, Edouard Eiffel, would marry Adrienne’s niece, Marie-Louise Bourgès, it was easy to imagine that their reunion could have taken place in 1886 …
No way to know but it remains for the only possible interpretation of this abrupt change on the part of Eiffel.
The Association of the Descendants of Gustave Eiffel will say that ” this film is for us, the descendants of Gustave Eiffel, a very nice tribute to our ancestor. Martin Bourboulon and his teams present to us a deeply human man, intelligently transcribing the formidable entrepreneur he was, his proximity to his teams, his daring. It is this strength of character, made up of determination and sensitivity, which enabled Gustave Eiffel to take up the incredible challenge of building the 300-meter Tower, this Tower which still fascinates as much today as in 1889 ″.
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