The Divine Sarah Bernhardt

Paris, 1896. Sarah Bernhardt is larger than life and a cyclone of contradictions. The original theatre diva, her world is blinding stage lights, opulent wealth, and delicious scandals. Ruled by fleeting fancies and sweeping emotions, she even holds court from her sickbed. And what better time to revisit her groundbreaking 19th-century stardom than in recovery from surgery? Guillaume Nicloux’s decadent biopic is an experience like no other: from exotic menageries to consuming affairs, La Divine is as showstopping as she is capricious. Patron to Alphonse Mucha, friend to Victor Hugo, and “little star” to Alexandre Dumas, Sarah Bernhardt defied societal expectations, adored dramatic death scenes and scandalised her convent with a lizard’s funeral. Nicloux’s film vividly recounts Bernhardt’s tempestuous story and is a dazzling chronicle of a chameleonic actress who defined her generation.