Le Cancre (2016)
Directed by Paul Vecchiali

Film Review

Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu and Julien Duvivier's Un carnet de bal (1937) appear to have been the main inspiration for Paul Vecchiali's latest cinematic offering, an understated drama in which the 86-year-old director plays an old man raking over the embers of his implausibly full love life.  Le Cancre is as good an excuse as any to parade a long line of talented and mostly all-but-forgotten actresses in front of the camera, with Annie Cordy, Edith Scob, Françoise Arnoul, Françoise Lebrun and Catherine Deneuve all willing to lend their talents, however briefly, to what may well be Vecchiali's directorial swansong.  Deneuve is barely on screen for a few minutes, but she redeems a dawdling and somewhat self-indulgent piece with a short scene that somehow says all that needs to be said about the pain and cruelty of love.  Danielle Darrieux, one of the director's most imporant muses, is conspicuous by her absence.

Running alongside Vecchiali's obsessive quest for his ideal love is a parallel story strand in which the old man tries to establish some kind of rapport with his estranged son, convincingly played by the director's frequent collaborator Pascal Cervo.  It is this part of the film that has more depth and meaning to it, although Vecchiali's tendency to overwrite his dialogue renders some scenes flat and clumsily theatrical - a far cry from the sheer brilliance of his early work, such as Femme femmes (1974) and En haut des marches (1983).  Le Cancre is hardly an unqualified success but for admirers of the work of this indefatigable auteur (this is his 26th feature in fifty years) the film has its rewards.  An unexpected musical number and an appealing mix of deadpan humour and wry reflection on life amply make up for the occasional longueur and an apparent lack of narrative coherence.  The old Vecchiali magic continues to delight.

Film Synopsis

Rodolphe is a man in his eighties who stubbornly insists on continuing to live on his own at his house in the south of France.  Reluctantly, he agrees to allow his son Laurent, a man in his forties negotiating a difficult mid-life crisis, to move in with him and ensure he comes to no harm.  The two men have never really got on, and each has good reason for resenting the other.  Throughout his life, Rodolphe has been an inveterate womaniser, but now he is obsessed with finding the one true love of his life, Marguerite, whose memory continues to haunt him...