Le Grand bazar (1973)
Directed by Claude Zidi

Film Review

Gérard Rinaldi, Jean Sarrus, Gérard Filipelli  and Jean-Guy Fechner - aka Les Charlots - are up to their usual tricks in this, their fourth - and arguably best - cinema outing.  The musical comedians were by this time at the height of their popularity, with the result that Le Grand Bazar, a fairly modest comedy for its time, managed to attract an audience of just under four million.  The film makes good use of the Charlots' unerring flair for anarchic slapstick and general knockabout tomfoolery, more so than most of the others they lent their talents to. This is most evident in the zany set-pieces that show the group at its comedic best.

The plethora of visual gags are in perfect harmony with the Charlots' upbeat musical accompaniment, giving the film an irresistible feel-good quality.  Michel Galabru and Michel Serrault are suitably cast as the hero and villain of the piece respectively, Serrault channelling as much cold-blooded nastiness as he can into his role as a supermarket manager with some obvious Trumpian tendencies.   As he demonstrated with his previous two collaborations with the Charlots - Les Bidasses en folie (1971) and Les Fous du stade (1972) Claude Zidi directs the film with an unmistakable aplomb, deriving as much humour as he possibly can from the humour-saturated hippy narrative.

Amidst all its comic hi-jinks, Le Grand Bazar never loses sight of its serious underlying message.  Without labouring the point, the film offers a cautionary note on the social consequences of untrammelled consumerism, with friendly local shops driven to ruin by the sudden appearance of anonymous profit-hungry supermarkets.  It is a theme that was particularly current in the early 1970s and has become increasingly so almost half a century on.  Le Grand Bazar reflected widespread concerns when it was first seen and today it seems just as pertinent, particularly now that the true costs of consumerism - environmental degradation, job insecurity, a widening of the gulf between the haves and the have-nots - have become glaringly apparent to us all.

Film Synopsis

Gérard, Jean-Guy, Phil and Jean are four friends in their early twenties who live in the same high-rise apartment block in one of the less salubrious districts of town.  A gang of idealistic idlers, they have no enthusiasm for work and prefer to while away their time in a more leisurely manner, preferably with a liberal dose of alcoholic beverage.  They find work at a factory that manufactures lawnmowers, but are soon given their cards when they show no aptitude for the job.  Desperate for money, Gérard and his buddies are willing to take whatever work comes their way, invariably with results that range between disastrous and catastrophic.

This insouciant foursome are not the only ones with problems.  Their friend Émile, the owner of a little shop in their neighbourhood, faces ruin when a huge supermarket opens its doors across the road and starts poaching all of his customers.  The enterprising friends agree that they must help Émile in his hour of need.  To this end, they set about stealing whatever they can from the loathsome Euromarché, passing this pilfered merchandise onto Émile in the hope of reinvigorating his ailing business.  It's a valiant gesture of defiance but can Émile ever hope to compete with a store that dwarfs his own modest establishment..?