Le Pere Noel Est Une Ordure au théatre - sketch par CyberPeople
When seeing this film - previously being a theater play (performed by the troupe 'Le Splendid') but turned into film by Jean-Marie Poiré - I realize that Santa Claus and Christmas evoke a great number of feelings in people.
In this case it's more the title of the play or film itself more than Santa Claus as he is not the main focus of this story but Christmas it is and it's not at all fun for everyone, as we will see.
Talking about less 'gay' but very humoristic films about Christmas we can recall œuvres like 'Bad Santa', 'Tomten är far till alla barnen' ('Happy Christmas' in English) and 'Rare Exports'.
We meet Pierre (Thierry Lhermitte) and Thérèse (Anémone), two neurotic volunteers working at a telephone helpline answering calls from lonely and depressed people.
The first call doesn't work out to well (or maybe it does?), as the person in the other end shoots himself during the conversation!
Not being able to leave the office the two 'Samaritans' are also visited by unwanted callers like: Katia (Christian Clavier), a transvestite being depressed who tries to hit on Pierre; Josette (Marie-Anne Chazel) a pregnant woman on the run from her fiancé Félix (Gérard Jugnot) who in turn works as Santa Claus during Christmas. The latter also turns up with a gun as he can't accept that Josette wants to leave him. During a struggle they accidently kill the lift repairman, butcher him and feed him to the animals at the zoo.
The situation is getting more and more out of hand and as you might understand, Pierre and Thérèse soon loses control over the situation.
As I (Gunnar) have written before, it's not always that I appreciate French humour and this is one of those cases. I have also written that I'm raised on British or Anglo-Saxon humour (I'm not fond of much of the American humour though), and therefore somewhat biased but in this case Aurore agreed with me when establishing that this film and it's humour couldn't be said reaching the higher stratas in the comedian heaven.
When retelling the story above, I found it very promising and if I only had read what I've written, I would have thought that this film was extremely entertaining but the gags felt obsolete, unfortunately.
This in spite of many fine actors mind you.
In this case it's more the title of the play or film itself more than Santa Claus as he is not the main focus of this story but Christmas it is and it's not at all fun for everyone, as we will see.
Talking about less 'gay' but very humoristic films about Christmas we can recall œuvres like 'Bad Santa', 'Tomten är far till alla barnen' ('Happy Christmas' in English) and 'Rare Exports'.
We meet Pierre (Thierry Lhermitte) and Thérèse (Anémone), two neurotic volunteers working at a telephone helpline answering calls from lonely and depressed people.
The first call doesn't work out to well (or maybe it does?), as the person in the other end shoots himself during the conversation!
Not being able to leave the office the two 'Samaritans' are also visited by unwanted callers like: Katia (Christian Clavier), a transvestite being depressed who tries to hit on Pierre; Josette (Marie-Anne Chazel) a pregnant woman on the run from her fiancé Félix (Gérard Jugnot) who in turn works as Santa Claus during Christmas. The latter also turns up with a gun as he can't accept that Josette wants to leave him. During a struggle they accidently kill the lift repairman, butcher him and feed him to the animals at the zoo.
The situation is getting more and more out of hand and as you might understand, Pierre and Thérèse soon loses control over the situation.
As I (Gunnar) have written before, it's not always that I appreciate French humour and this is one of those cases. I have also written that I'm raised on British or Anglo-Saxon humour (I'm not fond of much of the American humour though), and therefore somewhat biased but in this case Aurore agreed with me when establishing that this film and it's humour couldn't be said reaching the higher stratas in the comedian heaven.
When retelling the story above, I found it very promising and if I only had read what I've written, I would have thought that this film was extremely entertaining but the gags felt obsolete, unfortunately.
This in spite of many fine actors mind you.
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