La Reine blanche (1991)
Directed by Jean-Loup Hubert

Film Review

Despite its impressive star-studded cast, La Reine blanche fails to live up to its expectations and is essentially a rather lacklustre sentimental drama, painfully slow in places.  Richard Bohringer and Bernard Giraudeau put in some spirited, often moving, performances, but the rest of the cast (especially Catherine Deneuve) appear to be bored by the whole thing, and so the film feels at best uneven, at worst woefully stilted.  By failing to show the unpalatable truth about attitudes to black people in the early 1960s, the film appears overly cautious and unconvincing.   In the film's most dramatic scenes we do, however, get a glimpse of the much better work which this could have been if its director had been prepared to take a few more risks.

Film Synopsis

In 1940, Jean Ripoche and Yvon Legualoudec had a fierce falling out over their love for the same woman, Liliane.  Whilst Jean remained in his hometown of Nantes to marry Liliane, his rival went off to Antilles, to start a new life.  Twenty years on, Yvon returns to Nantes in the company of his black wife, Annabelle, and their three mixed race children.  By now, Jean has an established plumbing business but his main preoccupation at the present time is the float he is building for the impending town carnival.  Yvon is a pauper by comparison and makes his living by selling peanuts.

Yvon is keen to let bygones be bygones, so he invites Jean and his wife to dinner at his house.  The evening turns out to be a disaster and the men part knowing that their mutual hatred is still intact after all these years.  Jean and Liliane's relationship comes under strain when past grievances begin to resurface.  The last straw comes when Yvon suggests that his daughter Mireille should ride in Jean's float, as Liliane once did.  Rather than let this happen, Jean would rather destroy all of his hard work and start again.  Liliane's father Lucien then drops his bombshell, letting his daughter in on his secret that it was he who forced Yvon into exile, even paying for his passage to Antilles all those years ago...