Sur un air d’autoroute (2000) - film review

Jeff gets a job as a motorway maintenance worker so that he can be near to his ex-girlfriend Périnne, who works at a toll booth.  On his first day at work, Jeff’s left ear is sliced off when an irate motorist throws a record out of his car window.  The ear lands in passing car and ends up being passed around before being accidentally recovered by an unsuspecting Périnne.  Meanwhile, Jeff has raced to hospital so that his ear can be grafted back on, once it has been returned.  Unfortunately, the ear goes missing again, and, strangely, Jeff finds he can hear through his lost ear...

A wacky film if ever there was one, Sur un air d’autoroutetakes a conventional (pretty mundane) love story and twists it into a hip, surreal black comedy.  Whilst the film has some splendidly funny moments (most notably the ear laceration scene), its noticeable lack of content and dull characterisation weighs it down, making it quite tedious viewing in places.   It is left to the minor characters to fill the void created by the film’s lead characters.  Most memorable is Marie-France Pisier’s sinister Doctor Rouget, a vampish mad scientist masquerading as a skin graft surgeon.

© James Travers 2001

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