Zig Zag Story (1983)
Directed by Patrick Schulmann

Film Review

The inevitable sequel to the massively popular comedy Et la tendresse?... Bordel! (1979) is this uninhibited anarchic romp which looks as if it was conceived to break every taboo in the book whilst parodying social attitudes to love and sex.  In common with virtually every other film that Patrick Schulmann directed, this excessively boisterous sequel is painfully uneven. There are places where it is brilliantly funny, but many of the gags are excruciatingly laboured, to the point that you doubt whether you will live long enough to hear/see the punchline.

Not surprisingly, given this was the era when political incorrectness was at its most extreme, the humour is mostly in appallingly bad taste, but lacking the restraint of more family-friendly comedies of this time, the laughs are more readily extracted. The classiest thing about the film is a wonderfully incongruous Fabrice Luchini. Effortlessly, he steals the show as a compulsive voyeur - although the scenes where he is seen drooling over a pre-teen girl and later when he is seduced by a stripping nun come dangerously close to crossing the line into X-rated naughtiness.  There are some great jokes, but the film really is just too silly, too O.T.T., too provocative to be anywhere near as satisfying as Patrick Schulmann's earlier Bordel film.

Film Synopsis

A drop of water falling from the guttering of a building causes a chain reaction ending in a traffic jam which allows Gil Darmon, an aspiring painter, to meet Cat, a radio presenter.  It's love at first sight and it's not long before Cat has moved into the loft apartment which Gil shares with his friend Bob, a sex-obsessed photographer.  When a young girl is abducted, Gil finds himself the prime suspect...