Psy (1981)
Directed by Philippe de Broca

Film Review

The therapy culture, an emerging phenomenon in France in the late 1970s, is a subject which is ripe for satire, and Philipe de Broca's riotous comedy Psy taps into this rich vein like a hungry Velociraptor gorging on its midday snack.  The film was based on an adult strip cartoon (by the great Gérard Lauzier) and this shows in the blatant character stereotypes and slightly lunatic plot.  Despite its obvious lack of subtlety, the film makes an effective satire and is arguably one of the most successful of de Broca's comedies, far more palatable than his more overblown comic escapades with Jean-Paul Belmondo.  Psy feels oddly like a Woody Allen remake of the director's earlier comedy Le Diable par la queue (1969), a quintessentially Gallic sex comedy that goes completely off the rails and ends up as a bizarre kind of psychodrama, one that potently reflects the mood of post-May 1968 disillusionment in France of the late '70s.  Patrick Dewaere heads a distinguished cast that includes Anny Duperey, Jean-François Stévenin and two young, indescribably cute young actors right at the start of their illustrious careers, Catherine Frot and Jean-Pierre Darroussin.

Perhaps the most notable thing about Psy is that it offered Patrick Dewaere one of his few (and arguably finest) comedy roles.  Dewaere is best known for his dramatic portrayals of sympathetic outsiders in such films as Les Valseuses (1974) and Série noire (1979), but in Psy he is given the opportunity to let rip and play one his familiar tragic characters from a mainly comical angle.  Dewaere's portrayal of a man teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown is authentic but it is also grotesque and our reaction to his inescapable descent into Hell is naturally one of amusement.   The central joke of the film is that the man running the psychotherapy course (Dewaere) does so mainly for therapeutic reasons, since he himself is a manic depressive with obvious psychopathic tendencies.  In the light of subsequent real-life events (Dewaere would lose the woman nearest to him to his best friend and would then seek solace with a gun) the film acquires something of a much darker hue.  Dewaere was never afraid to draw on his own experiences - this is what made him such a great actor - but towards the end of his career he found it hard to distinguish real life from fantasy.  Psy, one of Patrick Dewaere's last films, perhaps reveals more about the actor than he intended, and it leaves us wondering just why it is we are able to see humour in the personal tragedies of others.

Film Synopsis

Where now are the ideals of May '68?  This is a question that Marc, a man in his mid-thirties and former soixante-huitard, might have cause to ruminate on as he profits from bourgeois angst by running weekend psychotherapy courses at a large house in the country belonging to his partner Colette.  Marc's clients are a predictable mix of monomaniac depressives and social inadequates, all desperately seeking release from their neuroses and inhibitions.  Marc understands their condition all too well, having once been a chronic depressive himself.  The only reason he started giving courses was so that he could scrape together enough money to fulfil his great dream of a tour of Africa.  His boldly coloured Land Rover is a symbol of both Marc's failed political illusions and his frantic desire to escape.

Blissfully unaware of the traumas that even now are galloping towards him, Marc embarks on his latest mind-healing course with his usual forced equanimity.  He has a promising group of attendees this time - Sibylle, Michel, Félix, Babette, Jacques and Jérôme shouldn't present him with any problems.  In fact, it should be quite an uneventful weekend.  Then Marc receives a bolt from the blue.  His ex-girlfriend Marléne rings him up with the news that she has just robbed a bank with her latest partner, Jo, and desperately needs a place to hide.  Now Marc hasn't seen Marléne for ten years, and when she walked out on him she took with her his best friend, Bob, and just about everything else he possessed.  So, understandably, he is not particularly over-keen to renew their acquaintance - even if she has killed a policeman.

As it turns out, Marc finds he has no choice in the matter.  Marléne and Bob show up and instantly set about wrecking his ordered world as they await the appearance of Jo.  Aware that Colette is allowing herself to be seduced by Bob, Marc begins to go off the rails, his former psychological problems reasserting themselves with a vengeance.  As he goes to pieces, his clients find the alternative shock therapy offered by Bob and Jo to be far more effective in resolving their own problems.  Eventually, the weekend from Hell proves to be an unqualified success for everyone - even Marc, who now has the confidence he needs to fulfil his one great ambition, in the company of his faithful Colette.