Les Copains (1965)
Directed by Yves Robert

Film Review

The buddy movie is a comparatively rare genre in French cinema, although the success of such films as Marc Esposito's Le Coeur des hommes (2003) and its sequels would seem to run contrary to the impression that the phenomenon of male bonding is a no-go area in French popular culture.  One director who was not adverse to championing male friendship in his films was Yves Robert, whose popular diptych Un éléphant ça trompe énormément (1976) / Nous irons tous au paradis (1977) rates as one of the comedy classics of French cinema.  A decade before this, Robert directed another passionate ode to friendship, Les Copains, based on a classic French novel by Jules Romains that was first published in 1913.

On the face of it, Les Copains is a gentle, inoffensive comedy of the kind that was frequently popular in France in the 1950s and 60s - a kind of Gallic version of the British sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, featuring a gang of grown men behaving like irresponsible teenagers, causing havoc wherever they go.  Anodyne as the film appears on the surface, it has a distinctly subversive underbelly to it and now appears to be oddly prescient, anticipating the burgeoning antipathy towards France's institutions that would culminate in the May 68 demonstrations and the ignominious fall of the final De Gaulle presidency.  What the film depicts, in a humorous vein, is a three-pronged assault on the army, the church and local government, the bulwarks of the recently established Fifth French Republic that would come under fire three years after the film was released, as France's disaffected young and disenfranchised public sector workers linked hands to bring down an unpopular, hopelessly outdated government.  The film's ending, with the River Seine gradually turning a pale shade of red, was highly symbolic, since red is the colour that is almost universally associated with fraternity.

It was for this film that the popular chansonnier Georges Brassens composed one of his most famous songs, Les Copains d'abord, which found its way onto LP two months before the film's release, in November 1964.  Brassens' memorable song, an anthem to friendship, adds to the enduring appeal of Les Copains, a film whose nostalgia value far exceeds its artistic merits.  Lethargically paced and pretty well bereft of humour in its first half, the film has not improved with age and would be easily overlooked were it not for the delightful ensemble formed by Philippe Noiret, Pierre Mondy, Claude Rich, Michael Lonsdale, Christian Marin, Jacques Balutin and Guy Bedos, with some pleasing supporting contributions from Tsilla Chelton, Claude Piéplu and Jean Lefebvre.  The highpoint has to be the scene in which a typically irreverent Noiret climbs into a church pulpit and gives an enthusiastic sermon in praise of libidinous gratification.  The one disappointment is that, for its recent DVD release, the distributor Gaumont removed the pink tinting that brought such a striking ending to the film in its original release.

Film Synopsis

One summer, seven men who have been the closest of friends since childhood decide to spend their holidays together.  To make this a memorable occasion, they agree to launch a campaign against three of France's main institutions: the army, the church and local government.  The target of their little rebellion will be a pair of provincial towns in the department of Puy-de-Dôme in south-central France - Ambert and Issoire.  Disguised as a minister of state, Broudier gains access to a military camp in Ambert where he immediately authorises night-time manoeuvres that will wake up the entire town.  The next day, Bénin passes himself off as a learned priest so that he can give an impassioned sermon in the church at Issoire, extolling the virtues of free love to a bewildered congregation.  At a ceremony to inaugurate a statue of the Gaul chieftain Vercingétorix, Lesueur disturbs the proceedings by taking the place of the statue and hurling insults at the assembled crowds.  The seven friends conclude their holiday by colouring the source of the River Seine pink...