Adieu, plancher des vaches! (1999) - film review

One day, Nicholas, a rich young man, decides to give up his privileged life and see for himself how ordinary folk live.  He gets a job washing up dishes in a Parisian café, befriends a beggar and tries to court a barmaid, without success.  The latter has fallen for the charms of another young man who spends the little money he has on nice clothes and his smart motorcycle, to give the impression he is wealthy.  For both men, the grass turns out to be much less green than they had imagined...

Winner of the coveted Prix Louis Delluc in 1999, this uniquely whimsical comedy from Otar Iosseliani offers an original slant on a familiar theme, the inability of human beings to transcend their social milieu.  Whilst one young man, tired of wealth and privilege, yearns for simpler, more earthy existence, another, from a modest background, squanders his meagre savings to show the world he is a man of means.  Around them, other men and women are engaged in a similarly futile endeavour.

It is hardly the most original or sophisticated of plots, but Otar Iosseliani, with his inimitable eye for detail and penchant for wry observational comedy, makes of it something that is strikingly humanist and rather charming.  With a cinematic style that is simultaneously reminiscent of that of Jacques Tati and Luis Buñuel, with a touch of René Clair for good measure, Iosseliani skilfully captures the nuances of daily life and lends them an air of surreal farce.  His portrayal of the bourgeoisie is particularly cruel, contrasting their preening self-importance with that of a pet stork.  The film’s title is a reference to what sailors used to say, with some contempt, when leaving dry land.  How perverse Nature is to give those who are born on land an eternal longing to go to sea....

© James Travers 2004

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