Les Gaspards (1974) - film review

Jean-Paul Rondin, the owner of a bookshop in the Latin Quarter of Paris, is just one of the many thousands of people to be vexed by endless construction projects that are changing the face of the French capital.   When his daughter goes missing, he persuades Commissioner Lalatte to help him look for her, even though Lalatte is anxious to get away for his holidays.  Jean-Paul Rondin’s search leads him to make an incredible discovery. Beneath Paris there lives a self-sufficient underworld community led by a genial autocrat, Gaspard de Montfermeil.  Annoyed by the incessant hole drilling, which is playing havoc with their music recitals, Gaspard and his followers decide to declare war on the Minister of Public Works...

Les Gaspards is without question one of the weirdest French film comedies ever made; it is perhaps best described as an LSD-inspired reinterpretation of The Borrowers.  It was the second collaboration of director Pierre Tchernia and writer René Goscinny (best known as the co-author of the famous Astérix comic books), following the successful Le Viager (1972).  The film ruthlessly satirises the seemingly insatiable obsession that French politicians have for major building projects, which reached its zenith under François Mitterand’s "imperial" reign in the 1980s. 

Although the film is structurally a mess and is at times marred by its excesses, it is nonetheless highly entertaining and has some incredibly funny situations (such as the hilarious sequence in which the belligerent Gaspards mix up the city’s gas, electricity, water and telephone systems).  The film’s main attraction is its remarkable cast list, which includes stars such as Michel Serrault, Philippe Noiret and Michel Galabru, and also Gérard Depardieu in one of his earliest film roles.  Like most anarchically zany comedies, Les Gaspards is probably best appreciated after you have partaken of a glass or two of a good French wine.

© James Travers 2008 Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?