‘Flo’: Review

Dir: Géraldine Danon . France. 2023. 131mins

Flo tackles the wildly adventurous life of gifted French navigator Florence Arthaud, a stubborn and ambitious woman who was every bit as good at sailing — perhaps better — than the guys dominating nautical events from the 1970s to the 1990s. A splendid central performance by Stephane Caillard in the title role and some impressive sailing sequences, all filmed on open water, are the main attractions in a frequently scattered narrative which is far too reluctant to provide missing swathes of information that would enhance the viewing experience for those unfamiliar with the woman and her place in sailing history.

Stephane Caillard plays Arthaud from her late teens until her forties with unflagging enthusiasm

Actress and documentarian Geraldine Danon, making her feature directorial debut, knew the real Flo, and it is difficult to say whether that is an advantage or disadvantage. She may be too close to her subject to render Flo’s exploits and her contrarian streak sufficiently coherent for newcomers; particularly outside the film’s native France, where it opened on November 1 having bowed at Cannes in May.

Caillard plays Arthaud from her late teens until her forties with unflagging enthusiasm. The actor boasts a winning smile and a convincing physicality whether she is setting the sails on rough seas or taking a break on the nearest available surface. (In convincingly forthright sex scenes, Arthaud’s utterly unapologetic appetites are on refreshingly frank display.)

At 17, Arthaud was involved in a debilitating car crash, suffering major neck injuries, so the fact she went on to excel in such a demanding sport is inspiring. She bucked the expectations of her well-to-do family (her father ran a publishing firm under the family name) by dropping out of medical school to follow her first love, Jean-Claude Parisis (Samuel Jouy), a rugged textbook sailor who showed her the ropes, as it were. Arthaud clearly loved the wind in her long hair, be it standing up in a convertible or on deck.

She has a lust for life, craves sensation, takes risks, loves hard and plays hard, and the film revisits these already established factors far too often over its 131-minute running time. She’s a talented and intrepid navigator who also happens to be a sexually uninhibited woman. That said, she has zero taste for pretending to admire the the rich men who are desperately needed as potential sponsors for a costly sport. And she casually offends the prominent cosmetics firm which sponsored one of her boats by telling an interviewer she does not use beauty products because a basic bar of soap and some sea mist are all any complexion needs. 

Perhaps afraid of being too didactic for viewers familiar with Arthaud’s life and accomplishments — two of the three credited screenwriters are seasoned scripting veterans  — the narrative veers in the other direction, leaving high and dry those not familiar with this woman’s feats. Questions abound. Where did that boat come from? What, exactly is the punishing trajectory of the Route du Rhum, the solo sailing race that, in 1990, Arthaud became the first (and so far only) woman to win? (Founded in 1978 and held every four years, the race starts in Brittany in Northern France and arrives in Guadeloupe with a lot of water in-between.)

Arthaud was not only adept at navigating by the stars with a sextant — handy when all her electronics go dead during a solo race — but was a crafty nautical designer, designing her own trimaran that was perfect for swift single-handed racing. Yet her public image vis-a-vis the corporate sponsor who funded her victory vessel is tarnished by behaviour that, back in the early 1990s anyway, would barely have raised an eyebrow if undertaken by a man. Self-reliant Arthaud is portrayed as the only woman of any note in sailing but cannot seem to sustain a career commensurate with her talents.

Arthaud’s grown children have been vocal in their objections to the way their late mother is portrayed. Based on ‘The Sea And Beyond’ by Yann Queffelec, a book already removed from the strict truth, the film insists on authenticity in some aspects — they tracked down the genuine boats wherever possible — and taking liberties with others (the contours of her relationship with fellow navigator Olivier de Kersauson, played by Alexis Michalik). Many of the scenes on the open water are genuinely thrilling even if sometimes needlessly accompanied by far too on-the-nose songs from the Beach Boys to Janis Joplin.

Arthaud fell overboard in 2011, but survived. A sequence of her floating on her back, staring at the night sky and remembering choice moments in her perhaps now-ending life makes it all the more devastating to be reminded that she died in 2015, at age 57, in a helicopter crash in South America during the making of a reality TV show with the unfortunate title Dropped.