Hiver 54, l'abbé Pierre (1989)
Directed by Denis Amar

Film Review

For a man who is probably the most revered in France in living memory, i.e. Abbé Pierre, it is unfortunate that his name should be associated with two mediocre films which do not even begin to do justice to his achievements, let alone his complex personality.  Robert Darène's Les Chiffonniers d'Emmaüs (1955) suffers from being too reverential and sentimental, but this is a far more palatable proposition than Denis Amar's even more sickly Hiver 54, l'abbé, which starts from the assumption that Abbé Pierre is a living saint (which, at the time the film was made, was pretty well the case).  The casting of Lambert Wilson as Abbé Pierre is the latter film's one touch of genius, and Wilson repays the honour by turning in one of the most respectable performances of his career (one that earned him his third César nomination).  Wilson, unlike the director, instinctively knew how to pitch the film and portrays Abbé Pierre not as a beatified superhero but as an ordinary man of the people, driven by an extraordinary compassion for his fellow man.

Unfortunately, Wilson is alone in his striving for historical authenticity.  Director Denis Amar is more concerned with knocking up what looks suspiciously like a kitsch 1980s homage to Marcel Carné's idea of poetic-realism, an effect that is totally ruined by some over-ambitious camera set-ups and a lack of restraint in just about every department.  Claudia Cardinale's scene-stealing presence in what ought to be a low-key drama immediately signifies that something is wrong, and this impression is merely confirmed when not one hint of subtlety is detected in any of the performances (Lambert excluded).  It doesn't help that the script is unbearably tacky in places, so mechanical and so stuffed with clichés that you wonder if a human being ever went anywhere near it.  The film is as theatrical as it is shallow.

Today Hiver 54, l'abbé Pierre looks unbearably twee and dated but, when it was first released in 1989, with Abbé Pierre a national hero in France, it was one of the big box office hits of the year, attracting an audience of around two million.  It is worth watching the film to remind ourselves of its protagonist's achievements and the remarkable media coup he managed to pull off in the long cold winter of 1954, but as a piece of cinema it leaves much to be desired - a pitifully mishandled tribute to someone who surely ranks as one of great humanists of the 20th century.

Film Synopsis

France, 1954.  With the country's economy still in a parlous state since the end of the Second World War, housing is not the government's number one priority.  As a result, homelessness has attained epidemic proportions, with whole families of poor people forced to live on the streets.  In the winter months, as the temperature plummets to minus fifteen degrees, it is not unusual for some of these unfortunates to freeze to death.  Abbé Pierre is the one man in France who is committed to bringing an end to this scandalous state of affairs.  He accommodates as many people as he can in his large house in Neuilly and has founded a charity, Emmaus, which raises money to help the homeless.  The death of a baby goads Abbé Pierre into writing an open letter to the minister of housing.  When this gets him nowhere, he makes an historic appeal on Radio Luxembourg and achieves far more than he could ever have hoped for...