For her first feature film behind the camera, actress and now director Céline Sallette signs a Niki de Saint Phalle biopic as shimmering as the artist's works. A real pop treat, the film explores a little-known facet of the artist who left her mark on her era with her colorful works. Soberly titled Niki, Céline Sallette 's film is due to hit cinemas on October 9, 2024.
Of the work of Niki de Saint Phalle, wonderfully embodied here by the vivacious Charlotte Le Bon, everyone knows her plump, colorful Nanas, but that's pretty much where the collective imagination ends. The French director goes against the grain of the classic artist biopic by choosing not to show any of the artist's works for the duration of the film - or how to turn a decision imposed by the artist's estate into a powerful directorial idea.
There's a simple reason why her work is only shown off-screen, or filmed from behind the painter's easel (not yet a visual artist): Céline Sallette chose to deal with Niki de Saint Phalle's life before her public recognition, and even before she had found her calling, preferring the intimate to the expected.
It's a risky decision, and one that may well leave novices in the field by the wayside - all the more so as the people around her are also referred to by their first names only, meaning that it takes a certain knowledge of 60s and 70s art to put a name to each artist, none of whose work is shown in the picture. Damien Bonnard, for example, plays the role of her second husband,Swiss artist Jean Tinguely.
Theeffervescent Parisian art scene of the time was at its peak after the war, and Niki de Saint Phalle joined the Nouveaux Réalistes group. Niki is the heroine of her own life, using split-screens that respond to each other, meticulous historical reconstruction (the costumes!) and almost childlike chaptering (like Martine se révolte).
But it's not so much this material that captivates Céline Sallette. From her beginnings as a model in the early '50s to her first internment in Nice in 1953, where she received electroshock treatment for her depression, from her first artistic sketches in the same hospice to her studio in impasse Ronsin in 1956, to her constant comings and goings in psychiatric hospitals, the young director makes a point of not overlooking any dramatic element in the artist's life.
Or how childhood incest changed the course of her life and influenced the way she painted. A victim of multiple abuses by men - her husband (who forcibly interned her), her father (she recounts the ordeal he inflicted on her in her book Mon Secret, published belatedly in 1994), her therapist (who burned the letter in which her father confessed to the incest), her lover (who beat her) - Niki de Saint Phalle spent her early years battling patriarchy and the shackles of the time, as well as her own demons. A resolutely feminist icon.
Céline Sallette signs the biopic of a free woman before her time, full of cracks. Right up to the final scene, in which she reclaims her family name. "I wanted to be Joan of Arc, George Sand, Napoleon in petticoats.I wanted something big in my life", she soliloquizes. She is Niki de Saint Phalle, and that's no mean feat.
Which film to see today? Our screening ideas
films to be seen today in Paris and the Île-de-France region. [Read more]
Comedies, dramas or biopics: our selection of the best French films to see in cinemas right now or in the weeks to come. [Read more]
A plunge into the art of an iconic duo... During its period of closure, the Centre Pompidou takes over the Grand Palais with a brand-new exhibition featuring Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely, as well as the Swedish art historian Pontus Hultén, from June 26, 2025 to January 4, 2026. [Read more]
Once again this year, the Institut de France is participating in the outdoor program of the Paris+ contemporary art fair by Art Basel. From October 17 to 28, 2025, come and admire an impressive sculpture by Ugo Rondinone on the institution's forecourt. [Read more]
Which film to see today? Our screening ideas
French films to see in theaters, now and coming soon
Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Pontus Hultén: our photos of the new exhibition at the Grand Palais
Art Basel Paris 2025: a monumental totem installed on the forecourt of the Institut de France, photos
