Un Homme Idéal is a French foreign language film which follows the story of an aspiring writer who 'writes' a world's best seller novel after plagiarizing a diary belonging to a deceased French soldier.
Un Homme Idéal centers on the newly famous author after he finds success on his book entitled "Black Sand" which details the life experiences of a soldier stationed in Algeria during the French Algerian War throughout the 1950's and 1960's.
The film touches on many themes relating to the French occupation period of the North African country as well as the dangers of claiming someone else's work as your own.
Synopsis
Un Homme Idéal's main character is Mathieu Vasseur, a manual labourer based in Paris who has dreams of becoming an author. Day in and day out he does back breaking work and writes whenever he's not at work. After submitting and being rejected by publishers, he sees his dreams crumble before his eyes. One day when he's sent to clean out an apartment belonging to a deceased tenant, he stumbles upon an old diary.
It's a real pager turner. After finishing the diary, Mathieu does the unthinkable. He types it out and claims it as his own. He submits his work to publishers where he is met with unbelievable interest.
He then becomes an overnight success.
Mathieu quickly obtains everything a man could want. Fame, money and success. He even gets married, living a life of privilege.
The film skips year later as he is visiting his rich in-laws with his fiancee. During a routine book signing he meets a man who claims to know that Mathieu is a fraud and demands money.
The remainder of the film follows Mathieu as he fears he may loose everything.
He is low on money, his publisher is pressuring him to see promised work and he has to save his career by paying a blackmailer. How will he make ends meet?
Important Themes
Un Homme Idéal tells a thrilling story of an author who quickly rises to fame and who is about to lose it all just as fast.
The film does a great job of providing a thrilling story while details of Algerian War become the backbone of the film.
The success of "Black Sand" gives everything to the main character and plays a vital role of describing events done in the region.
The French Occupation of Algeria lasted a very long time. Not many people are aware that the French actually controlled much of North Africa in the 1800's and 1900's.
France owned Algeria from 1830 up till 1963. The North African nation is known to be France's longest-held overseas territory.
The French used the people of the region as labour to obtain the resources of the continent, alike to other European colonial powers who had spheres of control around Africa.
Historical information show that two thirds of France's total value of goods came from Algeria's agriculture exports.
During the Second World War over 6.5 million Algerians fought for France against Nazi-axis forces while receiving nothing in return from their colonial rulers.
After the war, native Algerians came into conflict with police forces resulting in 6,000 Algerian deaths (some estimates hold that upwards to 45,000 Muslims were actually killed).
Many attribute this event as the start of the Algerian War which lasted from 1954 to 1962 which saw fatalities total in the hundreds of thousands.
For further reading on the subject check out this analysis done by the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School.
Conclusion
I found Un Homme Idéal to be a great thriller.
It pulled together a story about false success, paranoia and self indulgence quite well.
The film had a unique story line and was entertaining from beginning to end. All of the twists and turns were dramatic and kept you on the edge of your seat.
I would highly recommend Un Homme Idéal to anyone who is a fan of dramatic thrillers.
It sure is a good one, trust me on this one, folks.
