Too Ch'ti for Me

Dany Boon’s celebrated directorial début is a comedy about a hopeless civil servant (played by Kad Merad) forced to exile himself to a notoriously backward part of France in order to keep his job.

The gags are generally self-deprecating—revolving around prejudicial stereotypes associated with Boon’s home region (Nord-Pas-de-Calais) and the people (the Ch’tis) who live there. Gradually, the slapstick gives way to a sympathetic portrait that is clearly designed to rehabilitate this backwater in the French national psyche.

Given the film’s success (the highest grossing ever in France until The Intouchables), I’d say it struck a chord, but the Ch’ti lingo was so problematic for this non-native French speaker that I can’t really give a fair opinion.

Much of the regional dialect is incomprehensible to me and enabling the English subtitles doesn’t help. Many scenes simply cannot be translated literally and some are so far removed from the original French that it’s like watching two different films.

Maybe I’ll rewatch and re-rate if I can improve my Ch’ti comprehension.

Le fil

A stereotype-busting coming-out film considering its focus upon gay Arabs in an Islamic country (Tunisia), and they are not anywhere near as subtle as you would expect. It is hard to shake the notion however that their behaviour is more a discreet luxury of the bourgeoisie than typical of Tunisian attitudes in general.

I only watched because I spotted Salim Kechiouche (Le Clan, Mektoub, My Love, Engrenages) on the cast, but came away pleasantly surprised by a very moving and intelligent flick.

The Prelinger Antidote

Robert Bresson raises the art of kleptomania to visual poetry in this film about a young man who chooses thieving on the streets of Paris over an honest-day’s work.

Via minimal editing and incredibly nuanced and subtle direction, we are invited to observe the pickpocket’s successes and failures as he attempts to hone his craft. Psychologically we are toyed with—appalled at the audacity of his crimes, but admiringly complicit when he pulls them off. At one moment we wish him caught while at others we dread the possibility—perhaps because this bad man is actually a very complex man. An arrogant man but also a vulnerable man.

At times, Pickpocket feels like the polar opposite of those social guidance propaganda films from the 1950s. Instead of explaining how to avoid ne’er-do-wells, it gives you tips on how to be one.

It’s not hard to appreciate why censors in some countries were so spooked by it.

1 chance sur 2

It’s like a couple of your acting heroes got together with a beauty icon and produced a turd you couldn’t bring yourself to flush. Fascinatingly and entertainingly bad. The kind of shit we can all get behind because looking down upon cringe unites us.

The Typecasting of Dalle

Béatrice Dalle will never be allowed to leave behind this surprisingly sympathetic portrait of antisocial personality disorder. The film somehow begs you to remain neutral and objective while showcasing the most repellent extremes of the condition.

An interesting contrast to the portrayal of an equally disturbed young woman in L’été meurtrier—which was released just two years prior.

The Discreet Charm of Malle

French cities are in tatters as students and workers unite against capitalism and consumerism. Meanwhile, a bourgeois family in Provence bickers over inheritance before its deceased matriarch has even been put in the ground. Milou en mai is rather like a Luis Buñuel film but with the surrealism dialled all the way down. Surprisingly fun.