Film Review
If anyone was minded to offer an award for the most original French
film comedy of 2011 it would surely have gone to this deliriously camp
but effortlessly enjoyable debut feature from Mikael Buch. Taking
his cue from his idol, Pedro Almodóvar, Buch borrows a familiar
theme - a totally mixed-up young man's quest for identity - and hammers
it into a boisterous comedy that is bizarrely true to life, in spite of
its wild comic excesses and über-kitsch patina. Buch himself
describes
Let My People Go!
as a musical comedy without songs, and this is how it appears,
stylistically heavily influenced by the films of Jacques Demy and those
great Hollywood musicals of the 1950s. Like Almodóvar,
Buch cannot prevent himself from referencing the melodramas of Douglas
Sirk, films that were once considered shallow spinster trash but which
are now highly regarded for their remarkably perceptive analysis of
individuals struggling to find their true nature within a rule-bound
society that is as repressed as it is hypocritical.
Mikael Buch probably isn't in the same league as Sirk and
Almodóvar, but going by this first film he certainly shows great
promise, able to develop complex themes within a seemingly
frivolous and lightweight narrative. The central protagonist may
be a Jewish gay man with a worrying Romy Schneider complex, but his
burgeoning pre-mid-life crisis (exacerbated by a family that turns out
to be even more dysfunctional than he had thought) is something we can
all readily identify with. With its garishly kitsch visuals, eccentric
comic excursions and gay-themed romantic subplot which
is so corny it hurts,
Let My People Go! risks being
fringe fodder, the kind of film that might, in time, acquire a cult
following but at the cost of being lost forever to the
mainstream. Yet by dealing with universal themes in such an
honest and humorous way, by pumping genuine human feeling into the
narrative to make it real and meaningful (often when you least expect
it), Buch ensures that his film has broad appeal and will reward even
the most demanding of moviegoers. And there is probably not a lifeform
on the planet that could watch the shopping channel sequence featuring
an aerosol that instantly converts Gentiles into Jews without
collapsing in hysterics.
It says something of Buch's potential that he was able to attract such
a distinguished cast for his first full-length film. So home is
she in the world of Pedro Almodóvar that Carmen Maura was
probably the obvious casting choice for the main female role, that of
the hero's feisty mother. Maura's acting skills are hardly
stretched to breaking point but the film gives her ample scope to prove
her worth as a great comic actress. Equally committed, and just
as funny, is an enjoyably over-the-top Jean-Luc Bideau, who revels in
the part of an ageing gay lawyer who is too eager to dispense his own
idea of punishment when he is suitably aroused. Aurore
Clément, Amira Casar, Clément Sibony and
Jean-François Stévenin are just four of the seasoned pros
that add lustre to Buch's sizzling script, which was written in
collaboration with established screenwriter-director Christophe
Honoré.
And then there's Nicolas Maury.... Somehow managing to look
simultaneously like French cinema's answer to Harvey Fierstein and a queer Gallic
spoof of Mr Bean, Maury seizes the film right from the start and just
runs with it, like an Olympic athlete on industrial-strength
steroids. Maury has such an impact and exudes such charisma that
you wonder how it is we have scarcely noticed him over the past decade,
despite his appearances in a string of important films, including
Nicolas Klotz's
La Question humaine (2007) and
Rebecca Zlotowski's
Belle Épine
(2010). Being laugh-out-loud funny and likeable seems to come as
naturally to this promising young actor as swigging a good glass of
claret. Could Nicholas Maury be the next seriously big thing in
French cinema? After being mesmerised by his entertaining and
exquisitely truthful turn in
Let My People Go! you'll
be convinced he is just that...
© James Travers 2013
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Film Synopsis
Ruban enjoys an idyllic existence in Finland, content
with his job as a village postman and happily settled with his
boyfriend Teemu. Then, one day, the dream suddenly becomes a
nightmare. As he confesses to Teemu that he may have killed a man
whilst forcing him to take a parcel of banknotes he did not want, Ruban
paints himself as both a thief and a murderer. Ejected from his
happy homestead, Ruban is forced to take the next flight back to Paris
to stay with his Jewish family, who still haven't forgiven him for some
of his life choices. Ruban's own problems soon pale into
insignificance as he becomes embroiled in a series of family crises...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.