(Berlin) Sean Penn was with Volodymyr Zelenskyy the night Russian bombs fell on Kiev. “They will say you were in the presidential palace, not in a bunker,” suggested an aide to the Ukrainian president.
Posted at 3:05 p.m
Two days before the start of the war, the American actor believed – like many observers – that Vladimir Putin would not dare to invade Ukraine. He wasn’t there to document a possible armed conflict, but to paint a portrait of an unlikely president. An actor like him, who played a history teacher on television, catapulted himself into the presidency of Ukraine by accident. Before reality catches up with fiction.
Superpower, a documentary that Sean Penn co-directed with Aaron Kaufman and which was screened out of competition at the Berlinale, has become a very different object due to circumstances. It’s a unique look behind the scenes of the war at a crucial moment. And most importantly, a tribute to the fame of an actor and Ukr… Sorry. Sean Penn. It’s a film that celebrates Sean Penn. It is he, the actor, to whom we pay tribute, not Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
This narcissistic exercise of more than two hours – conceived as a manual for dummies on the Ukrainian conflict – quickly becomes an excuse to show us that Sean Penn had a role to play in Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion. That the Mystic River actor – he offered Zelensky his Oscar – is part of the story (with a capital H, of course). I was there, I saw.
The documentary is structured like a suspense, accompanied by political thriller music, about the meeting (barely a few minutes long) with Zelensky on the evening of February 24, 2022. Will it take place or not? While he waits to find out (disclosure: the answer is in the first sentence of this column), Sean Penn is on stage.
We see him constantly on screen meeting political scientists, journalists, soldiers, mercenaries, drinking a shot of vodka, debating whether to go or staying, smoking a cigarette, talking on the phone, trying to plead with the American government, drinking B. a vodka tonic, hold your vaporizer, go to the front line and do everything in your power, except shoot the opposing soldiers, to bring peace to the world.
A man on a mission, with a dye as bad as his liquor-soft talk. A humanist labeled as a pacifist – he co-founded the humanitarian organization CORE after the Haiti earthquake – became a warmonger who glorifies the military (he goes to a school that trains young soldiers aged 13 to 16). A fanboy completely obsessed with his subject, who no longer asks questions and is content with Salamalecs. An actor who plays the gonzo reporter à la Hunter S. Thompson, but sunk in subservience.
Towards the end of the film, there is a particularly revealing scene in which Penn agrees to be interviewed by populist host Sean Hannity on Fox News. Then we see Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, telling Hannity that this is arguably the most important interview of his career. The montage then shows us images of pro-Ukrainian protesters in the streets of Moscow, suggesting that it is thanks to Sean Penn’s intervention that Russian public opinion was mobilized. Not less. Give him the Nobel Peace Prize. It pushes.
I’m not the only one who feels like I’ve seen a propaganda film from the Superpower screening. “It is clear that the word ‘propaganda’ has a pejorative connotation. If it is propaganda to show the truth of the unity of Ukrainians in preserving what is most precious to them, freedom, then I am happy to be considered a propagandist! ‘ the actor and activist replied to a journalist who popped the question at a press conference on Saturday.
“It’s a movie that’s biased because it’s a war that’s biased,” admits Sean Penn. It has the advantage of being clear. That doesn’t make Superpower a better movie. It’s a rough documentary with no clear direction, often starring Sean Penn in anecdotal situations. If we’re even remotely interested in news, we don’t learn anything we don’t already know. And the production is enough to make even those who don’t suffer from motion sickness feel dizzy (it’s a co-production of Vice…).
PHOTO FROM THE BERLINALE
Sean Penn and Volodymyr Zelenskyy
From his meetings with President Zelenskyy, Penn has captured only a few minutes, during which we see him essentially moved and amazed, hardly expressing the slightest coherent idea. Incidentally, we have the impression that his project was primarily motivated by the need to make his activism public and to act as spokesman for the Ukrainian General Staff in the West, particularly in the United States. “It’s high time to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles,” he repeated several times at a press conference, wearing an invisibility cap labeled “Killer Tacos” on his head.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who saw the film last week – Sean Penn traveled to Kiev to present it to him – addressed the audience via satellite at the opening ceremony on Thursday evening at the Berlinale Palast. “We’re going to win, and I know you’ll be convinced of that when you see the movie Superpower, Ukraine’s superpower,” he said.
“He is a man of heart and courage. He was born for this historic moment,” believes Sean Penn, who states that apart from the birth of his children, he has never been moved to meet anyone in his entire life.
In a press conference, the actor and filmmaker called Vladimir Putin, whom he had previously met with Jack Nicholson at the invitation of filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, a close friend of the Russian President, a “war criminal” and a “filthy little thug”. It’s fair game.
“It’s hard for me to imagine that sensible people wouldn’t see this as a criminal invasion,” he said. “In all this terror, something magical happens. We all have to be on the right side of history. »
Sean Penn is of course on the right side of history. The problem is that he doesn’t seem to understand that this story isn’t his.