JC comme Jésus-Christ (2012)
Directed by Jonathan Zaccaï

Film Review

Has it ever occurred to you that too many high-profile filmmakers these days look like spoiled adolescents, so wrapped up in themselves, so eager to lap up the praise that is heaped upon them by the media, that they lose all contact with reality and end up making films that no one in his right mind would ever want  to watch?  If so, then take heart - this  is exactly the image of today's celebrity film director that Jonathan Zaccaï presents in his zany first feature, a shoestring mockumentary cut from the same cloth (or a low budget near-equivalent) as Rob Reiner's This is Spinal Tap (1984).  JC comme Jésus-Christ offers up the appalling prospect of Jean-Luc Godard reincarnated as a sulky teenager, a gangly prodigy who has already won the Palme d'Or and a César but has yet to sit his highschool exams.  Zaccaï's film doesn't just poke fun at celebrities and our obsession with celebrities, it is also a pretty effective send-up of the fake-documentary genre, although you probably have to be at least 95 per cent French and a rampant cinephile to see the funny side.

For those who have kept in touch with French cinema recently, Jonathan Zaccaï will no doubt be a familiar name - he has graced our cinema screens over the past decade, playing an assortment of ambiguous, shifty characters in such films as Jacques Audiard's De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (2005), Anne Fontaine's Entre ses mains (2005) and Joachim Lafosse's Élève libre (2008).  Having made two short films about five years ago, Zaccaï has finally taken the plunge and fulfilled his life's ambition by directing his own feature film.  Judging by the generally negative critical reaction to it, you can forgive him for thinking he wished he had stuck with the day job.  Imperfect as it is,  Zaccaï's debut feature was one of the most original French films of 2012, and also one of the funniest (if, like me, you have a totally warped sense of humour).

JC comme Jésus-Christ gets off to a promising start with Claire Chazal (an occasional presenter of the evening news on the main French TV channel TF1) interviewing the subject of the film, the eponymous JC (which stands for Jean-Christophe, not to be confused with that part-time miracle worker who went on to found his own religion).  The expression of mild contempt and effete boredom that settles on JC's face as Chazal fawns disgracefully all over him sets like quick-drying cement and stays there for the duration of the film.  Clearly, JC is not someone we are expected to have any sympathy for - he is exactly what you would get if you hybridise Jean-Luc Godard and Woody Allen and substitute whatever charm there is in this cinematic Wunderkind with an infusion of teenage strop at its most virulent.   JC may be a genius (although there's precious little sign of it in what Zaccaï shows us of him) but he is not someone you would want to invite round for dinner.  He treats his parents with the same air of suppressed loathing as his producers - both get the big sulk treatment if they fail to hand him his favourite breakfast cereal or the millions he needs to make his next cinematic masterpiece.  The caricature is pretty extreme, but not quite so extreme that you can't help seeing one or two real-life counterparts to the ghastly JC as he goes about showing he is God's gift to the moving image.

Whilst the film manages to sustain its off-beat humour pretty well, and is mercifully short enough not to outstay its welcome, it is pretty evident that it lacks the muscle to be a really effective satire.  What should have been a vicious Friday the 13th-style carve-up of an industry that is ripe for lampooning ends up as a somewhat toothless shark that is content with tickling anorexic minnows.  What comedy there is is mostly self-referential and targeted at an exclusively French audience - it is inconceivable that the film could ever play well aboard.  Most of the best jokes revolve around JC's misguided attempts to make an uplifting musical comedy about the exploits of the Belgian child killer Marc Dutroux (a news story that dominated the French headlines in the mid-1990s).  Gilles Lellouche and Kad Merad are two actors who are worryingly eager to play the part of Dutroux, although the latter insists on maintaining his anonymity (providing the film with its most enjoyable series of gags).  You have to be awfully familiar with contemporary French culture and have a very strange sense of humour to see the funny side of this film.

JC comme Jésus-Christ also suffers from being made in a hurry.  Zaccaï completed the screenplay in just over a month and managed to shoot the entire film within two weeks, with another month set aside for post-production - an astonishingly fast turn around.  Whilst the film's rapid production schedule benefits it in some respects, giving it a spontaneity and jagged documentary feel that it might otherwise have lacked, it cannot escape looking like a rushed job.  If Zaccaï had spent a little longer on the script, it might have been much punchier and a far more substantial piece than it is.

On the casting side, the film is harder to fault.  From the outset, Zaccaï had Vincent Lacoste in mind for the part of JC and there is probably no actor better suited to play a stroppy teen version of Jean-Luc Godard.  Lacoste has already distinguished himself in quite a few films recently - notably Riad Sattouf's Les Beaux gosses (2009) - and Zaccaï's film does nothing to alter the impression that he has a great career ahead of him.    Will Jonathan Zaccaï prove to be as successful as a film director?   If the mockumentary is a genre that appeals to you, there is much to like in his off-the-wall first film, but Zaccaï needs to borrow some of JC's misplaced self-confidence and creative anarchy if he is to make the grade and convince us he can direct as well as he can act.

Film Synopsis

Jean-Christophe Kern, a.k.a. JC, is a filmmaking phenomenon.  Aged 15, he was the youngest person ever to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes, for his first film, which also took a César.  Success hasn't gone to his head, however.  He may be the greatest film director in the world, a cross-between Jean-Luc Godard and Justin Bieber, but he still has to take his end of school exams like every other boy of his age.  JC may have a lot on his plate but somehow he finds the time to prepare his next film, which can hardly fail to be a masterpiece - a riotous musical comedy about the serial killer Marc Dutroux...