Perhaps it takes an outsider to approach a man of national pride with cinematic integrity. In that sense, Hungarian master László Nemeth is a perfect fit for Mulan, the acclaimed biopic of French resistance fighter Jean Moulin. In reality, however, the drama of this World War II spy tale rarely lives up to the filmmaker’s lofty aesthetic goals, resulting in a tale of torture and human fragility that falls flat long before its central martyrdom.
Beginning with colorized footage of the Nazi occupation of France, “Mulan” establishes its historical stakes before the title character, played by the rugged Gilles Lelouch, disguised as interior designer Jean Martel, parachutes into his home country. The picturesque night photography and buzzing soundscapes make Mulan’s lonely landing feel like a dangerous tightrope walk, but it took a long time for movies to feel this enchanting again.
For about the first half of its running time, “Mulan” unfolds in Hollywood noir style, with hard lighting outlining the characters’ devilishly silhouetted characters obscured by fedoras and facenets. Cinematographer Matthias Erdely’s gaslighting wash makes the whole thing visually arresting, but the story up to this point is one of bizarre double-feeling, as Mulan and her allies react to a larger plot unfolding elsewhere in the war. There are hints of a successor, a cult of personality, and a conversation that raises questions about Mulan’s suitability for leadership, but they’re rarely featured beyond the introduction.
It is only when Mulan is captured by the Gestapo and interrogated by the formidable Klaus Barbie (The Butcher of Lyon), played by Lars Eidinger, that the film becomes a work of subterfuge, despite Mulan refusing to reveal her true identity to her captors. Perhaps because of that, Mulan is too little, too late to feel like a genuine spy movie, but from that point on it at least depicts its eponymous hero in unexpected ways.
It’s perhaps a happy coincidence that Lelouch resembles a caricature drawn by Mulan (such as Georges Mandel) more than he does himself, but it’s consistent with Nemeth’s attempt to subvert the traditional biopic. While most war hero stories start with a flawed character and make that character flawless, “Mulan” does the opposite. It begins with a man moving through the world like a clever movie hero, but he turns out to be completely ordinary, especially when under threat of torture. But Mulan knows that. He knows that if pushed too hard he will break – a self-aware perspective rarely seen in historical drama protagonists – and that’s what makes him so deeply human.
Lelouch’s performance is in keeping with this demythologization, gradually shedding the character’s calm composure in favor of a moody resignation. But even though Nemeth’s aesthetic approach cloaks the frame in striking shadows, the actors do most of the heavy lifting. Mattias Erdely’s 35mm photography creates a deep and fascinating contrast. The film looks gorgeous, but it doesn’t immediately hit home given the linearity and literal nature of its approach to human suffering. At over two hours long, its main points are made clearly before becoming ad nauseam repetitive.
True, movies aren’t treatises, and historical retrospectives like Mulan are as much about the “how” as the “what” they do, but their scenes rarely unfold with a jagged or jarring rhythm. Viewers who know what happened to Mulan may sympathize with her, but compared to her Nazi characters, Nemeth too often fails to actually depict the evil caused to her protagonists, let alone deconstruct the origins of their destructive impulses.
The film is so focused on Mulan herself that it forgets to incorporate the wider world, especially the question of who betrayed him, but the real mystery is half-teased before being ignored. This is not Nemeth’s suffocating Son of Saul, where the camera is riveted to a single character and point of view. This is a more traditionally staged drama that embraces mid-century visual conventions and brings out beauty and ugliness in equal measure. Unfortunately, these abstract contents rarely connect with the real, concrete people in the frame.
