Travaux, on sait quand ça commence... (2005) - film review

Chantal is a successful lawyer who is actively engaged in championing the rights of the less fortunate, in particular immigrants, at the cost of her personal life.  After separating from her husband, she lives alone with her two teenage children and is in no hurry to settle down with another man.  This is unfortunate because one man, Franckie, one of her former clients, is infatuated with her.  In an attempt to drive Franckie away, and also to do some social good, Chantal hires an Argentinean architect and a band of immigrant builders to makes some drastic changes to her apartment.  It’s not long before Chantal realises she has made a terrible, terrible mistake…

Brigitte Roüan’s fourth full-length film is one of those bewildering French auteur pieces that practically defies categorisation, and therein lies much of its appeal.  Part social drama, part song and dance musical, part farce, part fantasy, it’s a film that breaks all the rules and which you know can’t possibly work – yet, remarkably, it does.   Anarchically unpredictable, at times poignant, most often outrageously funny, it’s a deliciously mad potpourri of a film that somehow manages to reflect today’s busy, chaotic, fragmented world.  More significantly, it dares to broach some of the most pressing social issues in France today (immigration and racial integration), and does so with seriousness and genuine feeling.  Whilst Roüan’s eccentric directorial style may not be to all tastes, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could not warm to Carole Bouquet’s tour-de-force performance as an idealistic lawyer who switches between Mary-Poppins-style optimism and abject despair as her life – and her apartment - comes crashing down around her.  If you’re not turned off by flying teapots and cartwheeling lawyers, here’s a film that will both surprise you and charm you – a refreshingly liberated view of the way we live now.

© James Travers 2007

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