Monday 4 September
10am; 6:30pm
Director Stephen Williams
Drama
England
108 minutes
Inspired by the incredible true story of composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. The illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, Bologne (Kelvin Harrison Jr. in a tour de force performance) rises to improbable heights in French society as a celebrated violinist-composer and fencer, complete with an ill-fated love affair and a falling out with Marie Antoinette and her court.
He is a child when his father takes him to be educated in Paris. It’s here Bologne is deposited at a posh boarding school with this brutally concise piece of parting advice: if you want to survive, be excellent at everything you do.
Bologne takes this to heart. As well as developing a reputation for his musical gifts, he becomes a fencing champion and promptly sets about puncturing the school bullies’ pretensions with and without his rapier.
A solid historical drama with fine performances throughout…The film’s overriding purpose is to shed light on an important figure who was deemed by Napoleon as being unworthy of a legacy due to the colour of his skin. – Jim Schembri, jimschembri.com
Chevalier is not the definitive history of the life of Joseph Bologne but a perfect starting point to discuss his musical contributions and reinstate him into the history books for not only France but classical music. – Jillian Chilingerian, Offscreen.it