Film Review
Between
Les Valseuses (1974) and
Préparez vos mouchoirs
(1978), the two films which earned him his international reputation,
Bertrand Blier made a film which has been overlooked almost since the
day it was released and which Blier himself dismissed as a dismal
failure.
Calmos is
Blier's most virulent riposte to the aggressive wave of feminism that
swept through the 1970s like a social tsunami, an unbridled, no holds
barred sex comedy which spans just about every popular genre, from road
movie to sci-fi Dystopia, ending with a Terry Gilliam-like departure
into Jonathan Swift territory. It's Blier's most chaotic and
strident film, boldly venturing into crevices that no other sex comedy
had previously ventured, a surreal oddity that never quite fulfils its
potential. Whereas some of Blier's less successful films have
enjoyed something of a reappraisal and are now considered an essential
part of his canon,
Calmos
remains locked away in the bottom drawer, like a dirty novel no one
wants to claim ownership for.
It's not as if the film doesn't have a great cast.
Calmos comes complete with one of the most
remarkable ensembles of acting talent Blier was able to hire,
with comedy heavyweights Jean-Pierre Marielle and Jean Rochefort
leading the most fulsome rebellion against belligerent feminism.
Marielle and Rochefort's is a comedy double act made in Heaven, the two
actors sparking off each other like oppositely charged electrodes that
have been wired up to the National Grid. Their scenes with Bernard
Blier, the director's illustrious father, here supremely well-cast as a
bon vivant priest, are by far the most enjoyable the film has to
offer. The sequence in which these three acting giants chastise
an adolescent for giving into carnal desires is hilarious, just one of
the weird Buñuellian digressions the film has to offer.
Brigitte Fossey is chosen by Blier to personify the dominant female -
utterly desirable and yet also scarily intimidating as the ball buster
from Hell. What could be more disturbing for the male psyche? -
an object of desire turned insatiable sexual predator. Who would
have thought that the same actress, looking scarily relaxed in her nude
scenes, had once been known for her portrayal of perfect innocence, as
the sweet little orphan girl in René Clément's
Jeux
interdits?
Although the film begins well, with one outrageous comedy set-piece
segueing beautifully into the next, by the mid-point Blier's
self-discipline and imagination have all but deserted him and total
anarchy breaks out. A drawn-out, full-frontal tussle between the
sexes involving a tank rambling over the French countryside feels like
something that has been lifted from an inferior comedy, and things do
not improve as Blier strays awkwardly into sci-fi territory. The
penultimate sequence in which the male protagonists are literally
reduced to sex machines on a production line serving the needs of now
fully independent women ought to be funny but it isn't - it's just a
crude gag that is extended way beyond the bounds of reason, let alone
decency.
The vulgarity quotient is then raised a notch or two further for the
film's grand finale, which looks like something the Monty Python team
may have dreamed up on a bad day. With its far from subtle
Freudian symbolism, there are some easy schoolboy smirks to be extracted from the
final sequence, in which the protagonists, now shrivelled up, wrinkled
Lilliputians, stray into the interior sexual organs of a woman, but is
this really what we expected from Blier?
Calmos is a true one-off, one of
those unfortunate, misunderstood films that manages to be both
brilliant and awful. As a counter to the feminist onslaught of
the 1970s it is pretty feeble, but as an expression of male insecurity
in an era of burgeoning female emancipation it is both timely and
revealing, and perhaps also darkly prescient...
© James Travers 2014
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Bertrand Blier film:
Préparez vos mouchoirs (1978)
Film Synopsis
Paul Dufour is a middle-aged doctor whose wife's conjugal demands on
him are beginning to get him down. One day he meets another man,
Albert, who is in the same predicament. On impulse, the two men
take a train to a remote village, where they hope to settle down and
enjoy a more peaceful mode of existence, far from the incessant demands
of women. When their wives show up unexpectedly the two men take
flight and head for open countryside, where they are joined by hundreds
of other men who are doing exactly the same thing. The ragtag
band of weary males is no match for the army of organised females that
suddenly appears from nowhere. As the women make their charge,
the men scatter in a wild panic. Paul and Albert are captured,
and the next thing they know they are in some kind of fertilisation
clinic, their sole function being to inseminate a never-ending line of
sexually dominant women. Their worst nightmare has become a
terrible reality...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.