The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Lost Illusion (Illusions Perdues, French, 2022)
Director: Xavier Giannoli
(Based on 'Illusions perdues' by Honoré de Balzac)

The distinction between the left and the right side of politics is said to have had its origin at the time of King Louis XVI. Those seated to the right were royalties and the nobilities who were quite contented with the status quo, that is, authoritarianism and the church's excessive meddling. The feudalistic method of wealth distribution works just fine for them, thanks to their linkages to the monarch. Those on the left of the King earned their every penny through hard work and hard-sell. Naturally, they abhor cronyism and want level playing fields.

The French revolution jolted this arrangement at its core. The peasants did not want to be reminded of their past anymore. People with surnames that had an association with the royalties and aristocrats were hunted down and guillotined. By the post-Napoleonic era, things had resorted back to how it was before the time the French broke down the gates of bastille. French society had been divided again by class. Money, wealth and ancestor became important again.

Against this background, Balzac wrote this classic. It is the story of a talented young 20-year-old man from the countryside who lands in 1821 Paris to be a somebody. Lucien, a man embarrassed by his heritage, comes armed with poetry and the zest to be a famous poet. He earlier is caught having an affair with a high society woman, somebody's wife. He soon discovers a world full of fake news and a press willing to prostitute itself to the highest bidder. His dream to be a poet crumbles as his writings hurt the sentiments of a certain section of society. Nobody writes the truth anymore. It all depends on who is their paymaster. The more things seem to change, the more they seem to recoil back to how it was previously. He falls in love with a budding actress, but her career is also cut short by these critics who shoot down talent with scathing jeers and paid negative reviews. Lucien comes home an empty man.

The kudos we read in the newsreels are because the reporters were told to do so. Publishers publish articles that meet their agendas. They realise that a lie often repeated becomes the unassailable truth.

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