Film archive, 2025

The Great Arch

L'Inconnu de la Grande Arche

Director Stéphane DÉMOUSTIER

1Festival entries

★Avg. rating

This is the new work by Stéphane Démoustier, invited to the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. The Grande Arche is a famous landmark in Paris, designed by architect Otto von Spreckelsen. It is well known that the construction of this 110-meter-high monument stirred numerous political and economic controversies, and at first glance, the film seems to revisit that spectacle. But Démoustier, a filmmaker known for transforming controversial events and figures into cinema, always brings to the surface the human being buried beneath the scandal. The architect, who seems more like a humble country gentleman whose main experience was teaching students and building his own house and a church, was perhaps ill-suited for such a glamorous national project. He was a man who valued the human hand over computers, and prized trust and principles. The director, whose style avoids showy flourishes or affectation, is perfectly suited for detecting the human element of such a person. From this figure, who might appear old-fashioned because of his stubbornness, emanates a form of humanness that is rare these days.