An Irrepressible Woman

Leon Blum rose to power in 1936 when his party won the elections ; his measures were revolutionary :the forty-hour working week ,paid vacations , it was his work. The French owe him a great deal.

But his life during the occupation is not well known : after a travesty of a trial ,he was sent to a fortress ,then in a house near Buchenwald concentration camp.

The film tells a story of a woman who left husband and son who fled to South America to follow that man she had been admiring since the Front Populaire days in his captivity .An irrepressible woman ,and a feminist , she urges the wives to stand together even his their husbands do not share the same political ideas .

The film was slagged off in France ;I do not go much for Elsa Zylberstein's acting generally ,but this time she won me over ; it's less obvious for Hippolyte Girardot :portraying a famous historical figure is always a hard task and he's just OK.