This is a film directed by Jean Becker, with Gérard Depardieu (Germain Chazes) and Gisèle Casadesus (Margueritte) in the two principal roles.
Germain is a man who was born 'by mistake' after a five minute rendez-vous between his mother and father the 14th of July.
His mother always has always looked upon him as being an obstacle in her life, no good and with no future.
She never gave him love or attention and in school even the teachers made fun of him and his lacking talent, or at least superficial lack of talent concerning not least the theoretical subjects.
He lives in a caravan on the lot of his mother, while she lives in her house, more or less an alcoholic and more and more senile, bitter and mean.
Germain meets Margueritte ("with two t:s") in a park on a bench, reading The Plague (La Peste) by Albert Camus.
As Germain never learned how to read and write properly, she starts to read for him and gradually the words come to him.
His friends at the local restaurant find him gradually changing into another person, using expressions they never thought he knew off.
When he talks about Camus one of his 'friends' asks him if has read Camus and Germain answers: "Well not all of them, only 'The Plague', 'The Stranger', 'The Fall".
Judging from his reaction, this was however more than his 'friend' obviously had read by Camus, a 'friend' being a man who boasts about being very well-read.
At the same time Germain lives out a love affair with a much younger woman - Annette (Sophie Guillemin) who actually is in love with him but parallell to this he finds Margueritte more and more attractive in another way.
The film tells the story about love and the lack of love, that it's never to late neither for love or for learning, the need of valuing people not so much after how they look or behave but how they function on a deeper level.
This is of course nothing new but the film tells this story in a charming way, not least when it comes to the relationship between Germain and Margueritte of course.
Depardieu is sometimes to much Depardieu and in some scenes one gets the impression that he is to familiar with the content of the film and his own cues, making it look as if he has the answer before a question is posed.
On the whole a very 'cozy' and amusing film, not to profound but touching in many ways.
Germain is a man who was born 'by mistake' after a five minute rendez-vous between his mother and father the 14th of July.
His mother always has always looked upon him as being an obstacle in her life, no good and with no future.
She never gave him love or attention and in school even the teachers made fun of him and his lacking talent, or at least superficial lack of talent concerning not least the theoretical subjects.
He lives in a caravan on the lot of his mother, while she lives in her house, more or less an alcoholic and more and more senile, bitter and mean.
Germain meets Margueritte ("with two t:s") in a park on a bench, reading The Plague (La Peste) by Albert Camus.
As Germain never learned how to read and write properly, she starts to read for him and gradually the words come to him.
His friends at the local restaurant find him gradually changing into another person, using expressions they never thought he knew off.
When he talks about Camus one of his 'friends' asks him if has read Camus and Germain answers: "Well not all of them, only 'The Plague', 'The Stranger', 'The Fall".
Judging from his reaction, this was however more than his 'friend' obviously had read by Camus, a 'friend' being a man who boasts about being very well-read.
At the same time Germain lives out a love affair with a much younger woman - Annette (Sophie Guillemin) who actually is in love with him but parallell to this he finds Margueritte more and more attractive in another way.
The film tells the story about love and the lack of love, that it's never to late neither for love or for learning, the need of valuing people not so much after how they look or behave but how they function on a deeper level.
This is of course nothing new but the film tells this story in a charming way, not least when it comes to the relationship between Germain and Margueritte of course.
Depardieu is sometimes to much Depardieu and in some scenes one gets the impression that he is to familiar with the content of the film and his own cues, making it look as if he has the answer before a question is posed.
On the whole a very 'cozy' and amusing film, not to profound but touching in many ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment