Faubourg 36 (2008) - film review

1936, Paris.  The closure of the music hall Le Chansonia drives its director, Pigoil, to drink.  Not only has he lost his job but his wife has walked out on him, taking away their son.  When two friends, Milou and Jacky, offer Pigoil the chance to reopen the music hall, he jumps at the opportunity.  The hall’s owner, Galapiat, a fascist sympathiser, gives them a few months to make a success of the venture.  An attractive young singer, Douce, is hired to draw the crowds, but she merely drives a wedge between Milou and Galapiat, who both fall madly in love with her...

For his eagerly awaited follow-up to Les Choristes, the biggest hit at the French box office in 2004, director Christophe Barratier sticks with the nostalgia theme and offers a similarly kitsch mélange of musical and sentimental drama.  The setting is France, 1936, a year of optimism and solidarity amongst the working classes, which soon proved to be a false dawn for socialism as the Popular Front government failed to come to grips with the problems of the time.  Whilst the film evokes the period pretty well, it is so heavily dowsed in cliché and tacky sentimentality that it fails to have anything like the impact of Barratier’s previous film.  A completely formulaic plot is rendered painfully absurd by some needlessly operatic mise-en-scène and performances that are completely lacking in conviction and charm.  Kad Merad’s impression of Fernandel and one or two of the musical numbers provide a welcome respite from the mushy mawkishness and infantile characterisation but these few fleeting moments of delight are not enough to sweeten the pretty indigestible pill which is Faubourg 36.

© Aiden Michel 2011

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