Les Bronzés (1978) - film review

A party of French holidaymakers arrive at a holiday club on the Ivory Coast in Africa, intent on making the most of their new-found freedom.   The main concern for most of these energetic pleasure-seekers is to sleep with as many members of the opposite sex as is physically possible in a week.  This is to the benefit of Popeye, the sports organiser, whose good looks make him an easy conquest for the women holidaymakers.  For the male half of the party, it proves a little harder to satisfy their needs, as Jerôme and Jean-Claude amply demonstrate.  Meanwhile, Bernard is taken aback when his wife Nathalie freely admits she has already been putting it about...

A popular comedy which has become a major cult classic in France, Les Bronzés has an indefinable charm which makes it easy to overlook its shortcomings.  The film was written and performed by that talented comedy troupe, L’Équipe du Splendid, who achieved fame and notoriety in France in the late 1970s for their new, uninhibited form of comedy.

Les Bronzés is really nothing more than a series of comic sketches, shot in a beautiful exotic location. It was intended to satirise the new craze for Club Med-style holidays, whose main attraction was (as the film’s title song proclaims) a combination of sun, sea and sex – the emphasis being distinctly on the latter.

For many it will come as a surprise that the film was directed by Patrice Leconte – a surprise because it is a much lighter, more trivial affair than the kind of film Leconte is now most associated with (Le Mari de la coiffeuse, Monsieur Hire, etc.)

Although Les Bronzés doesn’t really add up to much, it is exceedingly funny in places and features some delightful comedy, notably from Michel Blanc and Thierry Lhermitte.  The film’s success resulted in a very similar sequel, Les Bronzés font du ski.

© James Travers 2003

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