THE GREAT ARCH (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson
The Great Arch profiles an historical, embattled architect
Contemplating the embattled story of a talented, uncompromising architect brings to mind Brady Corbet’s award-winning The Brutalist starring the Academy Award Best Actor winner Adrien Brody as László Tóth. While incorporating aspects of some Brutalist architects’ experiences with nods to historical elements, the film is, at heart, fictional. Now, with some uncanny parallels to The Brutalist, fast forward to co-writer/director Stéphane Demoustier’s The Great Arch (L’inconnu de la Grande Arche). It documents the true story of 53-year-old Danish architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen, an unknown talent, who in 1982 wins French President François Mitterrand’s open-call competition for design of the Grand Arch.
Surprisingly, in his career, Spreckelsen had built only four churches and his own home. Nevertheless, his inspired design that he called “the cube” would visually link the east-west axis of Paris, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre to La Défense at the end of the Triumphal Way. Intended for the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution in 1989, Spreckelsen and Danish engineer Erik Reitzel envisioned their 20th-century monument celebrating humanitarian ideals, a counter to military tributes. Standing 110 meters (roughly 360 feet) the Arch would provide an eyeline to the Arc de Triomphe four kilometers away, roughly two and a half miles. Spreckelsen’s project was overseen by Bouygues, a French civil engineering company, in coordination with French architect Paul Andreu and official manager Jean-Louis Subilon, all battling in the midst of bureaucratic debates.
As planning for and construction proceeds, French government support of the inspired cube is repeatedly contested. Engaged in and enjoying discussions with Otto, President Mitterrand understands and fights for the essential elements required–special Carrara marble and absolutely no altering of the technical specifications. However, project manager Subilon and architect Andreu, officials overseeing the project, don’t agree, raising numerous financial and aesthetic issues. At Otto’s side every step of the way and his solid adviser, his wife Liv stays in the background but always supplies crucial, accurate information, right on the spot. As the arguing over the Grand Arch intensifies, Otto and Liv’s relationship suffers, a fragmentation that parallels that of the proposed architectural gem.
Demoustier adapted Laurence Cossé’s 2016 novel, The Great Arch, with a brilliant balancing act pitting art versus business, inspired design versus political maneuvering. The myriad details are never lost in the complex production process, though developments late in the film will prove astonishing. As Otto, the always solid Claes Bang carries the film, his firm assertiveness segueing into frazzled meltdowns. In a superbly nuanced performance by Sidse Babett Knudsen, Liv is Otto’s anchor until even she becomes caught up in disastrous modifications. This impressive profile of talent and disaster is a sobering as it is revealing of the fortunes of embattled art and those with inspirational visions.
