Review by Milan PaurichAlthough Bertrand Tavernier’s THE FRENCH MINISTER is based on a graphic novel (“Quai d’Orsay" by Antonin Baudry who worked under French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin during the build-up to the Iraq War), fans of British political satirist Armando Iannucci (IN THE LOOP, HBO’s “Veep”) might assume it’s a Gallic riff on Iannucci’s inside-the-beltway comedies.
Perhaps it’s a cultural thing, but to fully appreciate Tavernier’s farce you probably need to have a passing familiarity with the intricacies of France’s current political system. And either be a speed reader or fluent in French because the subtitles fly by so fast and furiously you could get whiplash trying to keep up with all the bon mots and verbal ripostes ricocheting through the air like linguistic fusillade.
