JIFF2025: Claude Lelouch La vie en mieux

Click here if you liked this article 2

https://www.jiff.com.au/films/claude-lelouch-la-vie-en-mieux

Date Reviewed: 01/11/2025

We all have to work, some of us do so only for the money while others do it for pure love. Filmmaker, Claude Lelouch found his calling once he started making films. The documentary, “Claude Lelouch La vie en mieux” is a celebration of his art including all the triumphs and the setbacks and is playing as part of the Jewish International Film Festival.

The film is in French with English subtitles and is directed by Élise Baudouin. In the writers’ chair is Baudouin along with journalist Stéphane Boudsocq. It is told in a first-person perspective with the 86-year-old Lelouch describing his life and his unorthodox filming methods.

Lelouch is renowned for filming movies with no script. It was something that completely unnerved actress, Catherine Deneuve who appears here alongside other French actors. Lelouch would stand there holding the camera himself and give the actors a few broad directives before stepping back and letting the magic happen. It was challenging at times, but it also produced magic like the dual Oscar winning, “A Man and a Woman” in 1966.

This documentary includes some clips from Lelouch’s works. It also describes his childhood living in occupied France during World War II as a Jewish Algerian. Lelouch’s mother would hide him in the cinema to evade the Gestapo. It was there that Lelouch found a passion and a spiritual belief in the power of cinema.

“Claude Lelouch La vie en mieux” is an interesting documentary about the French filmmaker. It should appeal to both Francophiles and cinema lovers alike. A celebration of a long and impressive career that has been over sixty years in the making, it’s a reminder to audiences that it continues to go from strength to strength due to his power and vision. 

Reviewed by Natalie Salvo.