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Credits
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Summary
Having first lost his wife then his job as a tweed tailor, Alex Ponttin has devised a
novel way to keep himself in touch with society. He admits himself into people’s
homes, by pretending to be a relative or an official, and persuading his victims to give
him a night’s free board. With his disarming, amiable personality, he is rarely
refused, and, on each occasion, he slips quietly away at first light without any fuss.
This happy routine is ruined, however, when someone starts to burgle each home he stays
in, making Alex the obvious suspect. Fortunately, the police officers investigating
the case are so terminally stupid that Alex has little chance of being arrested...
Review
Michel Serrault excels in this of-the-wall satirical comedy which makes a bizarre assessment
of modern life. He plays an impish vagrant who uses his new-found freedom to improve
the lives of his fellow man, by briefly insinuating himself into their lives. The
twist is that he is infinitely wiser and far better dressed than the policemen who are
hunting him, making a strong resonance with the neo-thrillers which were so prevalent
in French cinema in the 1970s and ‘80s.
In fact, there is much to suggest that this film is an extreme parody of the French thriller genre. Watching the film immediately after a standard French thriller from the 1980s (when the genre, in its sudden decline, ended up in self-parody), the similarities are apparent. The police are presented as inept scheming villains, lacking the moral fibre and intelligence of the individuals they are pursuing, whilst the latter are presented as victims of an unjust legislative system who contribute far more to society. Bonsoir goes much further and suggests that whole of modern society, not only the police, is culpable of mediocrity and moral laxity. It takes an outsider like Alex Ponttin who, free from the bonds of modern living, to point the way to a better future. As in many of Jean-Pierre Mocky’s films, there is a strong anti-establishment, almost anarchist sub-text. This is manifested in the way that the self-proclaimed moral figures (the police, the clergy, even the President of the Republic) are presented in this film, but also in the elevation of Alex Ponttin to the status of a public hero at the end of the film. Whilst society and state sink into a numbing inertia, bereft of integrity and humanity, it is left to the eccentrics, the outsiders, to build a more cohesive society and a better world. In some ways this is a profound film, although this is perhaps masked by an over-excess of comedy (which veers to far towards the burlesque on a number of occasions). There is also the sense that Mocky hasn’t really delved into his subject in as much depth as perhaps he might. True, the film is entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking, but it often feels superficial and inconclusive. © James Travers 2000 Write a review for this film... |
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