Amélie au pays des Bodin's is a film about a family living and working in the center of France, more specifically in Indre (le département) - where I live.
It's a comedy originally being a stage play and running for more than fifteen years and - if I remember correctly - 3000 performances! This is the fourth or fifth film they've created about the Bodin's.
In 2008 it became the second most popular film in France after Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis.
The humour is however very rude and primitive but sometimes there are moments when the humour becomes more 'universal', understandable even for a Swede.
I think however that a film like this is best understood by the French and not least those living in Indre and the neighbouring areas.
In this film we get to meet the extremely original (or not?) mother Maria Bodin (Vincent Dubois), her likewise original son Christian Bodin (Jean-Christian Fraiscinet) (Dubois and Fraiscinet being the screen writers) and Christians wife Claudine Bodin (Muriel Dubois).
These are the main characters but who is Amélie? Amélie is a small baby born when her mother worked in the garden with beekeeping, commenting some of the events in the film.
In the end we get to see her when she becomes ten years old and the young actress is also the daughter of one of the directors.
Beside these principal individuals there are a number of atypical (or maybe typical for the region?) characters.
Maria is a widow and the 'godmother' running the business and also deciding how Christian and Claudine should live and work. They both live with his mother on her farm and this causes a lot of problems of course, not least as they both are afraid of Maria.
They all work on the farm - well Claudine not to much - selling products from it, notably cheese.
Christian and Claudine are being swindled by an estate agent selling a house that doesn't exist but not just selling it once but twice, at one occasion to Christian and at another to Claudine.
A talk show host (acted by a real television journalist) invites them to his show to come to terms with the estate agent but this causes more problems and they have already payed thirty thousand euros to him, leaving them broke.
They want to baptize their child but the priest prefers looking at a tv show instead and on top of this there are a number of burglaries committed in the area and Christian is accuesed of being the perpetrator.
On the whole I found the film and the jokes lacking subtlety because even if using rude jokes they might be good, blinking at different phenomena in society but in this case I found both them and the story to foreseeable. This even though they tried to make fun of everyone, the local inhabitants, the police, the priests, the journalists and tv shows and not least the British (a British woman employing Chrstian to work in her garden). Anyway: No surprises.
One and a half hour of entertainment but the laughs were limited - on my behalf - even though the audience seemed to enjoy 'the spectacle'.
Director: Eric Le Roch.
It's a comedy originally being a stage play and running for more than fifteen years and - if I remember correctly - 3000 performances! This is the fourth or fifth film they've created about the Bodin's.
In 2008 it became the second most popular film in France after Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis.
The humour is however very rude and primitive but sometimes there are moments when the humour becomes more 'universal', understandable even for a Swede.
I think however that a film like this is best understood by the French and not least those living in Indre and the neighbouring areas.
In this film we get to meet the extremely original (or not?) mother Maria Bodin (Vincent Dubois), her likewise original son Christian Bodin (Jean-Christian Fraiscinet) (Dubois and Fraiscinet being the screen writers) and Christians wife Claudine Bodin (Muriel Dubois).
These are the main characters but who is Amélie? Amélie is a small baby born when her mother worked in the garden with beekeeping, commenting some of the events in the film.
In the end we get to see her when she becomes ten years old and the young actress is also the daughter of one of the directors.
Beside these principal individuals there are a number of atypical (or maybe typical for the region?) characters.
Maria is a widow and the 'godmother' running the business and also deciding how Christian and Claudine should live and work. They both live with his mother on her farm and this causes a lot of problems of course, not least as they both are afraid of Maria.
They all work on the farm - well Claudine not to much - selling products from it, notably cheese.
Christian and Claudine are being swindled by an estate agent selling a house that doesn't exist but not just selling it once but twice, at one occasion to Christian and at another to Claudine.
A talk show host (acted by a real television journalist) invites them to his show to come to terms with the estate agent but this causes more problems and they have already payed thirty thousand euros to him, leaving them broke.
They want to baptize their child but the priest prefers looking at a tv show instead and on top of this there are a number of burglaries committed in the area and Christian is accuesed of being the perpetrator.
On the whole I found the film and the jokes lacking subtlety because even if using rude jokes they might be good, blinking at different phenomena in society but in this case I found both them and the story to foreseeable. This even though they tried to make fun of everyone, the local inhabitants, the police, the priests, the journalists and tv shows and not least the British (a British woman employing Chrstian to work in her garden). Anyway: No surprises.
One and a half hour of entertainment but the laughs were limited - on my behalf - even though the audience seemed to enjoy 'the spectacle'.
Director: Eric Le Roch.
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