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Born into a noble family in 1864, the year Edouard Manet's painting «Le déjeuner sur l'herbe» caused scandal at the Paris salon, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec suffered two accidents during his early youth which prevented him from growing up normally.
This handicap and the fact that he was rather ugly was said to have been the result of the marriage between his parents who were cousins. Nevertheless, Henri soon showed an extraordinary talent for painting and his mother was wise enough to send him to Paris where he trained in the best art schools.
Lautrec soon turned his back to academic painting while haunting bars and cabarets and frequented artists who had been rejected by the Establishment. He notably befriended Van Gogh and such friendship led him to fight a duel against a Belgian painter twice his size. He also had a close relationship with Suzanne Valadon, the future mother of Maurice Utrillo, who first worked as a model for many painters such as Renoir and Degas before turning to painting herself and spent much of his time with prostitutes whom he depicted in many paintings .
Rapidly known as a drunkard, Lautrec produced some stunning cabaret and bar scenes as well as extraordinary posters on the Moulin Rouge and other music hall places. However ill-health prevented him from leading a normal life and between fits of delirium tremens and buoyant periods of activity his existence ended at the age of 36.
His caring mother was horrified to discover so many lustful works in his studio after his death but two collectors, Manzi and Joyant, miraculously managed to prevent her from destroying them.
The film is rather a faithful account of Lautrec's life and Régis Boyer appears quite convincing playing the main part. Elza Zylberstein is stunning as Suzanne Valadon and so are Anémone and Claude Rich as the artist's parents but the movie strangely lacks rythm probably because Planchon is mainly a theatre director.
Lautrec, who was a practical joker and quite a naughty ungrown boy, would probably have fallen asleep if he had had the opportunity of watching this rather insipid fresco about his life. The problem is that one would have needed to travel back to the 1890's to meet the artist and catch his moves day after day with a camera so as to have a real clue of who he really was : a nobleman of great descent who could not bear being considered as a dwarf and wanted to rebel against his handicap with a furious desire to be as much mad with joy no matter the price he had to pay in leading a disorderly life. Adrian Darmon