Reviews

Early 20th century, North Vietnam. Nguyen, a westernised nobleman and landowner, befriends Tam, a "dan day" (three-stringed instrument) player. When the latter is accused of murder, Nguyen hides him in his estate, making him a supervisor and a confident, but Tam is forced to leave his lover, the singer To. Later, Nguyen plans to marry a city girl. On her way to see him, she dies in an accident, in the same car that he gave her as a present. Grief-stricken, Nguyen then turns his back on everything modern, burning his own Western furniture and clothes, and forcing his villagers to destroy their few modern possessions, including tools, books and toys. Tam, seeing the land sliding into misery and his master retreating into madness, tries to help him and his people. Meanwhile, the French colonists want to build a train line right through Nguyen's land.

Vietnamese cinema is, for Westerners, one of the last terra incognito of Asian film-making. While Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai movies have become almost mainstream for Western film-goers, Vietnamese films are a rarity on European and American screens. In fact, several of the successful Vietnamese films shown in the West are from French-Vietnamese directors such as Tran Anh Hung (Scent of the Green Papaya) or American-Vietnamese ones such as Tony Bui (Three seasons), and while those are very good movies, their point of view remained an expatriate's one, not unlike Scorsese or Coppola directing a Italian movie.

Mê Thao (The glorious time of Mê Thao) is a purely Vietnamese movie and is as such already interesting for what it tells us about Vietnamese culture and Vietnam's perception of itself. There are many themes in this movie: the conflict between modernity and tradition seen from inside (some of the autodafe scenes echo Tsui Hark's Wong Fei Hung movies where the hero has also a love-hate relationship with the West), the complexity, rigidity, and violence of traditional class relations, the ambiguous role of the colonists (both seen as oppressors and as liberators), and a repressed sexuality. The main melodrama is perhaps the less interesting part of the movie: the love stories that are central to it are too idealised and mostly take place before the movie's time frame so it's not easy to empathise with the characters. Of course, this may appear different to someone who speaks Vietnamese and can understand the subtleties of the original version.

There are many impressive scenes in this movie: a group of westernised Vietnamese bourgeois forced to disrobe and put on traditional garments to please the master of the land, a man so lovesick that he ends up carving a wooden statue of his fiancée and making love to it, a mute servant trying to make herself prettier by rouging her cheeks with betel juice, a colourful travelling show about and old man and his young wife, and the beautiful one where dozens of giant paper lampoons are lit and set free in the night sky, a tradition re-invented for the movie by the director Viet Linh. Also remarkable is the "cat tru" chamber music, a thousand-year old art that plays a decisive role in the movie, and that sounds like a Vietnamese version of the Blues, as harsh, plaintive and moving as its American counterpart.

Presented as the first full-length 3D-generated animated movie from France, Kaena was first an idea for a video game that was expanded into a `real' movie. A fantasy/sci-fi tale, it takes place on of flying forest made of gigantic vines inhabited by a tribe of humans, who, in order to appease their gods, must harvest the sap of the vines. Trouble is, the harvest is no longer what it was and the gods are somewhat angry. A young woman, Kaena, who looks like a cross between Lara Croft and Princess Mononoke, understands that the gods are up to no good, and fights them with the help of unexpected allies and funny sidekicks. The plot follows the well-used pattern where a young misfit must save the world from dark forces, battle monsters and unearth world-shattering secrets, and the script borrows from many previous ones (fans of French sci-fi comics will recognise bits of the `Adventures of Alef-Thau', written in the 80s by Alexandro Jodorowski, who is also credited on Kaena). The script is also certainly quite European in spirit, with more overt sexuality and a indictment of religion probably unimaginable in a mainstream US-made cartoon.

While a little lacking in plot, Kaena mostly succeeds as pure eye-candy. Since the representation of realistic humans is still out of reach for computer graphics (Cf. the mixed results in Final Fantasy), the authors have chosen a half-comic-book style (like in Ice Age) which is quite pleasant, at least if you like people with really big eyes. The movie creatures are quite nice, particularly the talkative worms with their tired faces and their walking and flying devices. But it's the sets which are the most beautiful, with a particular attention to lighting, colouring and texturing: many scenes are shot in a golden light, slightly overexposed with lens flares and other atmospheric effects. The mixture of quasi-photorealism and more traditional CG style works quite well. The vine forest, the village and the spaceship scenes are exceptionally rendered, and among the most beautiful seen in a CG-rendered movie so far. The world of the gods, by contrast, has a dark, liquid and sticky feel (the gods themselves are liquid, gigeresque creatures) with bright shining reflections, and is truly original. Sometimes, there's a little too much of everything, as if the movie was a demo for CG effects (hair, particle systems, volumetrics.), not unlike the first Technicolor movies where everything had to be brightly coloured. But that doesn't detract from the WOW! Factor of the movie.

All in all, Kaena is a very recommendable movie, and one can hope that the authors will follow with a bolder script.

In this sequel to the huge hit "La vérité si je mens", we're back to the little Jewish community of the Sentier, a Parisian district specialised in textiles. While the first movie focussed on the sentimental and comedic adventures of Eddie (a goy trying to pass for a Jew though totally ignorant of Jewish traditions), the sequel is more about Eddie's friends, a colorful bunch of fast-talking, hot-tempered entrepreneurs who love nothing more than fast cars, fast women, glittering watches and flashy clothes. For the millions of people who saw the first episode, there's little new here : the same (or almost) characters return to their well-oiled roles and punchlines. Still, it's a better sequel than most. First, it has a story that is appropriate to our times: the little Davids of the Sentier are fighting a giant Goliath - a big supermarket chain, and their final vengeance is fun and inventive. Second, there's more room for detail and character definition. Particularly, José Garcia as Serge, the mythomaniac, pathetic loser of the team, is given a lot of screen time and makes a memorable impression (and, like Ben Stiller, he has a lot of hard time "Meeting the parents" !). Third, it's fast-paced and quite funny. In some way, it's hard to describe such a movie to non-French people as the community presented here cannot be found elsewhere. It is also close to impossible to translate, too, as most of the fun is in the "typical" slang (like the title itself). Here's a comparison that comes to mind : take the comedic moments of Italo-American gangster sagas (like Goodfellas or the Sopranos), keep the colorful language but replace handguns by yarmulkes !

US or European movies about non-US, non-European people are usually faulty, even when they mean well : often, they need to use some bland occidental character (think Brad Pitt in "7 years in Tibet"), or the non-occidental people are actually occidental people with make-up and funny accents, or everybody speaks English but the bad guys, or everybody behaves like a bunch of Californian housewives or New York traders. So I was a little apprehensive about "Himalaya". Fortunately, French director Eric Valli knows the Himalayan (Dolpo) people he's filming, he has been living with them for years and speaks their language. So what we got here is a true movie, with true cinematic characters, a true plot and no condescending stuff. It's actually amazing to behold a story where the people have problems so remote from the ones someone from Paris, France can have (like having to set up a 2-weeks cattle drive across Himalaya to trade salt against barley), and however these problems and emotions are made more real than, say, a comedy about bourgeoisie with sex trouble. Not that the plot is truly original : it deals, in a rather classic way and not unlike some war movies, with the essence of leadership (the original French title is "Himalaya, the youth of a chief"). What makes a leader, and how and why can leadership be challenged ? Why people do follow some leaders and not other ? From what we see in the film, these are questions that people who live in such extreme conditions find of extreme importance. Add a magnificent scenery (no need for filters for clear blue lakes there) and talented actors who literally inhabit their complex roles (partly because they've been in situations like this or know people who have), and here is one impressive adventure movie.

Though serious illnesses are commonplace plot enhancers (and easy tearjerkers) in many dramas and melodramas, there are actually few movies that deal with the disease condition itself. In "Philadelphia", for instance, the hero fought against the system more than against AIDS. In "E.R.", we suffer a lot with the patients but the doctors are still the heroes. "Haut les coeurs!" (that could roughly be translated as "Be brave!") tells the story of Emma, a young woman who learns at (almost) the same time that she is pregnant and that she is suffering from an advanced breast cancer. We follow her, and the people around her, during her private war against the disease. We share her hopes, doubts (will she be able to keep her baby), and terrors. It's hard to say that such a movie is "pleasant" and the subject is not of the popular kind. There are many reasons why one would want to see it, though. The first is the documentary aspect : it is largely autobiographical, and rarely we have seen on movie such a detailed account, both at technical level (how the war is fought) and psychological (how people react, doctors, friends, lover, brother). This not an abstract disease, but a real one, and a strong reminder that there's not romanticism in fatal sickness. In one funny, though terrible, scene, Emma's tells what she thinks about Nature's sadistic ways of killing people to a "natural health" supporter. The other reason is that it's not a documentary, but a fiction, and an efficient, even suspensful one, with lighter moments. Like any good fiction, it also works at a more symbolic level. How can we cope with impending death ? How can we help our loved ones ? Karin Viard's portrayal of Emma is unforgettable and put her definitely on the top of the contemporary actresses.

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This is surely a stunning movie. Like all Besson's movies, it suffers from plot holes and a lack of stylistic balance. The very beginning is cheesy (looks like a shampoo commercial), the ending so-so when compared to the rest of the movie. And yet, it's stunning. The battle scenes of course (think Saving Private Ryan + Braveheart), but not only that. The key is Milla Jovovitch, who has everything one could expect from Joan, and more. If you can't figure out how a 18-year old peasant maiden could lean men to war, just watch Milla take charge, of her warriors, and of the movie. Mel Gibson's William Wallace was good, but this was another cool Mel character. Here, you've got a hero who's truly frightening, the embodiment of willpower. She's a righteous, religious war machine trapped in a young girl's body, and sometimes a young girl trapped in an armor suit, up to the point of utter craziness. Is Joan a saint ? The movie has an original, modern answer, far from the kiddie legend we all know. Milla's Joan is close to some of Shakespeare's heroes or heroines, mad but not quite, sure of her destiny and assailed by doubts. In spite of its flaws, one the most compelling movies of the year, with Milla Jovovitch as the most credible Joan ever.

Recent French history is full of holes that moviemakers tend to fill slowly because of local taboos. Though there are now many movies about suburban life and the plight of the second and third generation immigrant families, little had been shown (and told) about their parents who came in France to work. `Living in paradise' tells the story of an Algerian man who lives in a shanty town in Nanterre in the 60's, a place very similar to Rio's favelas, for instance. He arranges for his family to come to France, but he now needs to find a decent place to live, because the `paradise' he gives them is more like a muddy hole. The movie is the chronicle of this family, from the dignified father, a man with principles that he'll have to bend, to the silent mother, who will discover that she has rights too. The characters are not embellished in any way. They are not typical movie victims : they rebel, and sometimes they fight mean, or shamelessly exploit each other, thus going down even further. Also, they are harassed by the police (it's the end of the Algeria war), and for the first time in the movies is shown the October 1961 massacre, where the police is rumored to have killed about 200 Algerian people in Paris by beating and drowning them after a demonstration. Like other movies of this kind, it suffers from a lack of storytelling and from a tendency to be elliptical (we'd like to know more about this family), but yet it's a clichéless, decisive movie about a forgotten part of French memory.

Twenty years after `La cage aux folles', `Pédale douce' revisits the comedy that has gay characters as main comic devices. Obviously, times have changed, and while the Cage's heroes were hysterical, outrageous `queens', gays in a 1996 comedy need to be more realistic. Here, Adrien and his friends are gay top bank executives who have to deal with Alexandre, a powerful, über-macho client. Because he's in love with Eva, Adrian's best female friend and gay club owner, Alexandre will discover a world he'd known only through the magazines. This is a very rich – sometimes too rich - movie, full of situations, characters and moods, ranging from physical comedy to very moving moments, like the touching and difficult relationship between Adrien and Eva. Though it's very funny, the general tone is bittersweet : everybody in this movie is not exactly what he/she thinks he/she is, and will have to cope, more or less successfully, with this discovery. AIDS looms over the characters. The movie has been criticized for recycling most of the clichés about gay culture (the characters may be bank executives, but they still act a little like the Cage's Zaza Napoli), and for being ultimately conservative (gays remain gays and straights remain straights). Still, Pédale douce is very enjoyable, and wonderfully played, with a special mention for Fanny Ardant as the complex, sensitive Eva.

"Fallait pas..." is the third comedy by Gérard Jugnot that tries to deal with a serious theme, but he's less successful here than with his previous "Une époque formidable" and "Casque Bleu". Here the target is the sectarian phenomenon, with a precise reference to the "Solar Temple Order" whose members committed mass suicide in France and Canada. Bernard, an executive for a big company, tries to get home in time for his wedding but is caught in the middle of a mass suicide. He saves a sect member (who then follows him like a puppy), and he's chased by the sect leaders, two over-the-top crooks with bloated egos and a craving for money. The parody of sectarian life and mind-control mechanisms is quite funny, but is unfortunately mixed with more conventional sitcom clichés (Bernard's family). However the actors are very good, particularly Yanne, Lamotte and Lhermite as the various flavours of sect leaders, and the movie is eventually redeemed by their performances.

After his successful `Une époque formidable', a comedy about homeless people, Gérard Jugnot came back with another, even more ambitious, comedy, about the Balkanic wars (though the place is left unnamed). A group of French tourists, vacationing in a Mediterranean island, is caught in the middle of a war they didn't even know about. In a few hours, they learn to set aside their former troubles (pending divorce, loneliness, ageing) so that they can cope with important matters, like avoiding to get killed or fishing corpses in a swimming pool. While the movie is not entirely satisfying (every character learns the usual lesson about what's really important in life, and the war they're in is too theoretical to be convincing), it explores a few new themes, like our (Western Europeans) ambiguous feelings about the Yugoslavian tragedies (and foreign tragedies in general), or the idea that we (Western Europeans) tend to live in a bubble that's bound to explode. Jugnot has certainly to be credited for taking comedy out of its usual tracks.

A fortysomething executive is brutally fired. Before he fully understands what happened to him, he's on the street, and finds himself sharing the plight of a bunch of homeless people : how to find food, how to find shelter, how to beg... It could be dramatic, or even tragic, but it's a comedy. It's not a totally new territory (`Trading places', with Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd has been there before, for instance, and we can also think about Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life"), but it's still a rather sensible movie that manages to keep the good balance between the funny situations and the much less funny ones. Also, and very fortunately, it is not too overtly moralistic or sentimental. Life is rough is the street and the social commentary isn't very optimistic. The movie title, "Une époque formidable", can be translated as "It's a wonderful Life", but there's a much bitter edge to it.

Movies in the last years have become more uniform, more streamlined, particularly in the US. As a result, the film market is full of sleek, entertaining movies that the whole world goes to see, but these movies have nothing but harmless baby teeth. Fortunately, people like Lynch or Cronenberg still do movies that may be considered defective by most people, but that bite into the flesh with pointy canines. The Naked Lunch has very sharp teeth indeed. It's supposed to be an adaptation from a William Burrough's book, which doesn't make sense anyway. It starts as the story of a failed writer whose wife becomes addicted to an insecticide powder... It goes downhill after this relatively sane and normal beginning. It's a ride, a drug-induced nightmare full of horribly funny visions (the sort of visions that artists used centuries ago to represent hell). Anuses talk. Aliens sip alcohol in bars. People get impaled. Typewriters turn into bugs. Liquids ooze. You may say it's flawed, or disgusting, or ridiculous, or boring. I saw it with someone who absolutely hated it. But the fact that this person still keeps talking about it 8 years after seeing it says a lot about the Naked Lunch, at a time when we tend to forget blockbusters a few hours after watching them. The Naked Lunch is here - in your mind - to stay.

Mortez (Rochefort) is a famous ageing radio game host who spend his life on the road, going from town to town for his show, with his younger sidekick Rivetot (Jugnot). The show is their whole life, until the radio station decides to cancel it... "Tandem" is a tragedy, a comedy, a road-movie and a tale in the same package. The background manages to be both hyperrealistic (it depicts a gloomy provincial life and is inspired by a real game show that still exists today) and fantastic (surreal events abound, like the mysterious red dog Rivetot keeps seeing). Rochefort is simply great as the charming but obsessive Mortez who will never surrender. Jugnot, as the subdued sidekick that has trouble living without his mentor, delivers a strong performance far from his usual slapstick roles. Both make a heartbreaking, unforgettable tandem and the movie is one of the masterpieces of the 80's.

Watching the Conversation makes one realize how much US film-making has changed since the 70's, particularly when you compare it to Enemy of the State, the 1998 Will Smith vehicle. Both movies deal about the threatening aspects of a society obsessed by surveillance. In both movies, Gene Hackman plays the role of a top professional surveillance man, possibly the same character. The 1998 movie is fast, thrilling, violent, colorful. The Conversation is slow, relatively calm and uneventful (only the last scenes are violent and a little gory) and the cinematography is ice-cold. Enemy of the State stars an energetic, young, handsome, positive black hero (with a loving family). The Conversation hero is a tedious, 40ish, moderately sexy, unsympathetic white man, unable to develop normal relationships with people. The 1998 movie involves a large scale conspiracy, while the 1974 one deals with an intimate one. The 1998 movie is formulaic and follows the usual `wrongfully accused man' pattern. The 1974 movie has a complex plot and characters who actually interact with each other. Enemy of the State is fun to watch, plays with the modern viewer's knowledge of movie clichés, and it delivers two hours of good entertainment. The Conversation is less fun to watch, a little self-conscious, but it certainly leaves the hero, and most spectators, in a state of shock.

The French have done few films about their own Vietnam war. Schoendorffer has done two of them, the 317th Platoon and Dien Bien Phu, the latter about the 1954 battle where the French army was defeated and lost the war. This movie was a sort of answer to Oliver Stone's Platoon and its hand-held cinematography and "realistic" shooting et setting strongly evokes the recent US war movies. However it goes little beyond that (war is dirty, people did their best etc.). It may serves as a useful reminder of this war (it is quite forgotten, even in France) and as a touching tribute to the people who fought this doomed and dubious battle. It's more an interesting attempt than a real success as a movie.

There are many war movies, but few movies about war. War movies are usually action movies set during a war. Other movies deal about war itself, why the people do it, why they enjoy it and suffer from it. Like Apocalypse Now or the Thin Red Line, The Crabe-Tambour is about war, though, unlike these movies, it shows little of it. It tells the story of Wilsdorf, a.k.a. the "Drummer-Crab", a French officer in the colonial armies, who witnessed (and took part in) the fall of the French empire after WWII. The man himself has become a legend and lives in the memories of fellow soldiers, who tell different tales - fantastic, ironic - about him. Wilsdorf appears as an elusive and shining ghost, a youthful figure of their past, who is still roaming the world as a free man while they grow old and embittered. Some may find there both a dubious fascination for the military (strongly reminiscent of Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese series) and nostalgia for the colonies. However, it's so beautifully filmed that this can be easily forgiven.

Jim Jarmush makes a different kind of cinema. It's certainly not mainstream, but it's certainly not the typical art-house movie. In Ghost Dog, like in his previous movies, he borrows the clichés of genre movies (gangsta films, samurai films, mafia films) and put them in a mixer until he obtains something new. At first glance, we've seen all these characters and situations before : the silent professional killer (from Melville, Woo or Seijin Suzuki's movies), the middle-aged tired mobsters (from Scorsese's Casino and Wiseguys), the fast killings ; and yet it's surprising (and fun too), in his cool, jazzy, slow-paced way. Forest Whitaker moves, walks in Ghost Dog like nobody ever walked in a movie before him. His presence is impressive, and makes Ghost Dog not only one of most original characters created recently, but also one who is hard to forget.

French cinema has a long tradition low-budget silly movies where we can imagine the director, the writer and the actors deciding to shoot the movie after a fine meal in a good restaurant. There used to be lots of movies like this, with a script reduced to a couple of sullen jokes, poor lighting and a bunch of second-rate actors. These movies were so cheap they actually made money, and the crew could pay the rent until the next one, and the next restaurant. Most of these pieces of art haven't survived in the public memory, but occasionally one of them still pop up on prime-time TV and they manage to evoke fond memories from the viewers. This is one of these movies.

It's a sort of spoof on caper movies, with two con artists trying to break in the Bank of France through a hole of the subway toilets... But for this they have to hide from the lady who runs the place and use a lots of subterfuges to get into the bathrooms and dig the hole. I like this movie. Because of its incredible array of lesser-known actors, who did hundred of movies of the same ilk. Because you can spot some actors that will later become famous. Because in these cheap movies the authors are so little concerned by the rules of normal cinema that surreal things tend to appear randomly (like the dignified African businessman who crosses the set followed by a dozen of white carriers). Because it's filmed in a realistic, non glamorous Paris, much more like I remember it from this period than you can see it in art movies like Bertolucci's `Last tango'. Because, though full of toilet humor, some of the dialogue still makes me laugh. Because, if this movie pops up again on TV, I'll watch it again.

Set in the rural Southern France of the 70's, this partly autobiographical movie chronicles a year in the life of a mother and her seven children, all working in the fruit and vegetable farm owned by the father, a handsome domestic tyrant who has another "official" family in a nearby town. The beauty of this film lays in its apparent simplicity, that mixes an almost documentary approach (the depiction of country life is nothing like you usually see in movies ; it was shot in continuity from summer to winter) with something close to the magic of a fairy tale. It's life, it's perhaps as realistic is it can be, and yet it's transmuted in something else. The happy, carefree children are endangered elves, and the only protection for these `little ones' (who don't seem to have individual names) is the warm, thick mantle of love offered by their dignified queen of a mother, who, in turn, can hardly resist the animal attraction of her `ogre'. Fortunately, there is no drama, no pathos, no hysteria, no violence shown. They're not necessary because we know what's going on. Instead, other images, like those of the children playing in the hay or running under a plastic cover, or the final shot have already turned this movie into an instant classic.

Sometimes charming, sometimes annoying, Camille is a carefree "modern girl" who seem to have a tendency to bump into people and objects. So she lives alone, and spends her time with a bunch of friends or lovers of mixed sexual inclinations, until she bumps (physically) into the man of her life, who really has nothing to do with her. "La Nouvelle Eve" is a more humorous than usual comedy in that oh so French tradition of "who do I really love" movies. The setting is very classical (Parisian thirtysomething artists who have nothing else in their minds than sex and its related complications) and follows the pattern of most comedies of this kind. However, the movie is fun, fast, and is propelled by the energetic Karin Viard, one of the best French actresses of the new generation.

I have fond memories of this movie, which used to be shown on French TV repeatedly in the 70's, and not only because of Jacques Brel. This is picaresque at its best, the story of a XVIIIe Century country doctor prone to applied libertinism (preferably in haystacks with well-endowed girls) and free-thinking. Shot in 1969, its "paillardise" - bawdiness - is perhaps as faithful to the original novel as to its own time, and absolutely enjoyable. Think about a mixture of Cyrano and Tom Jones (the movie, not the singer). Brel is wonderful, though again the sympathetic proto-revolutionary hero, as are Claude Jade and the rest of a colorful cast.

"Les randonneurs" is a comedy about a group of 5 thirtyish people (lovers or ex-lovers, as it is fashionable in the latest trend of French comedies) hiking their way in the (not so) wild Corsica to meet their own self. This is more "City slickers" than "Deliverance", though, so don't expect anything more dangerous than a hungry wild boar. It's typically the kind of movie which is held together by its actors, led by "Man bite dog"'s serial killer Benoit Poelvoorde, here the would-be charismatic leader of the group, actually a self-important, but pathetic, idiot, whose loves to explain others how to set one's left foot on the ground, and then the right one, well, how to walk. Also noticeable is Karin Viard, who is doing a great job as the temperamental whiner of the group. Of course, the movies' situations and characters are even more enjoyable if you've been on hiking trips yourself, because you're likely to recognize them.

This is a day in the life of a famous comedian, who is back to his hometown in the North of France to be the guest of a festival. There is probably some autobiography here, since Jackie Berroyer, who wrote the script and plays the main part, became a (modest) celebrity after many years spent as a writer. Frankly, I have trouble reminding what happened in this movie because little happens : though fans gather and cheer, the comedian understands how superficial, though well-meant, it is. His little celebrity, his uninteresting memories of his native town don't matter as much as he thought they would do, and he finds himself a fish out of the water. There was the germ of a strong movie here, but too little happens for it to be exciting. What remains is the general tone of the movie, a melancholy as gray as this town and its weather.

In this short (1 hour) movie, Augustin (played by the uncommon Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc) is a strange fellow, a narrow-minded clerk in an insurance company, whose attempts at a better life (by becoming an actor, for instance) are bound to fail due to his warped understanding of the world : like the best comic characters, he just goes on and on with an autistic determination, until something breaks. The movie is shot in a documentary fashion, and the characters (sometimes playing themselves) react with the same puzzlement as they would do in real life, and the conflict between the realism of the situations and Augustin himself is what makes the movie work. Augustin is really a new comic type, reminding of the slapstick days. Because he's a real pest sometimes, he's hard to love as a character, but you're unlikely to forget him. Sibertin-Blanc, brother of director Anne Fontaine (known for more serious pieces like Nettoyage à Sec), revived Augustin in commercials, and in a sequel, "Augustin roi du Kung-Fu", where Augustin tries to become the next Jackie Chan (!)

WWII left of lots of scars in French memory. Right after the war, all the French were supposed to have been freedom fighters, minus a few baddies of course. Then, slowly, a different truth started to emerge, and since the controversy has been raging on. Uranus, written by Marcel Aymé right after the war, was always controversial, as is this modern adaptation by Claude Berri. In this half-destroyed (by US bombings) French village in 1945, people try to have their lives back, or to save themselves : communists, drunks, sadistic late-hour partisans, former antisemitic hate-mongers, war profiteers... These characters may be too theoretical to be convincing, and of course the permanent blurring of the line between the good and bad guys is too systematic. However, the superior acting and the fact that the movie still manages to raise difficult issues (the general tone is very misanthropic), make it very compelling.