Our film at Cinéma Lux, La Châtre this afternoon:
Le nom des gens is a film where the left wing devotees in France make fun of the left wing party and themselves and their sometimes - often I would say - naïve approach to life and politics.
It's also a film debating the somewhat dated question about the national identity in France, a debate promoted by Nicolas Sarkozy and his government a couple of years ago. Who is French and why?
We meet two principal characters: Bahia Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier) and Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin).
For those of you who are not familiar with French names, the name Martin is the most common family name in this country and combined with Arthur, he becomes the bearer of one of the most common name combinations in France. With a first name like Michel, he would have become 'the most common Frenchman'.
Bahia Benmahmoud is the only (according to the character in the film) person in France with that specific name.
Of course it's later revealed that underneath the very French name and history of Arthur, we find that his family is as little or as much French as Bahia's.
Arthur is working as a biologist, specialized in epizootics and they meet by chance, two utterly different persons, superficially looking.
Bahia has her own goal in life and that is to convert all right wing supporters to become left wing dito and this by sleeping with them - all!
She is rather succesful til the day she meets Arthur and not least his parents.
Contrary to what she thinks, he is a Jospinist, that is to say he is symphatizing with Lionel Jospin=leftist.
The story goes back and forth, not only when it comes to Bahia's and Arthur's relationship but also concerning the discussion of the national identity in France.
It's an entertaining and in a way thought-provoking film but the combination of humour and a social-political 'message', does not totally convince me. This mixture doesn't work out to well, I feel (Gunnar).
Trivia: Lionel Jospin does appear in the film during three minutes when visiting the main character in his home.
Director: Michel Leclerc.
Le nom des gens is a film where the left wing devotees in France make fun of the left wing party and themselves and their sometimes - often I would say - naïve approach to life and politics.
It's also a film debating the somewhat dated question about the national identity in France, a debate promoted by Nicolas Sarkozy and his government a couple of years ago. Who is French and why?
We meet two principal characters: Bahia Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier) and Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin).
For those of you who are not familiar with French names, the name Martin is the most common family name in this country and combined with Arthur, he becomes the bearer of one of the most common name combinations in France. With a first name like Michel, he would have become 'the most common Frenchman'.
Bahia Benmahmoud is the only (according to the character in the film) person in France with that specific name.
Of course it's later revealed that underneath the very French name and history of Arthur, we find that his family is as little or as much French as Bahia's.
Arthur is working as a biologist, specialized in epizootics and they meet by chance, two utterly different persons, superficially looking.
Bahia has her own goal in life and that is to convert all right wing supporters to become left wing dito and this by sleeping with them - all!
She is rather succesful til the day she meets Arthur and not least his parents.
Contrary to what she thinks, he is a Jospinist, that is to say he is symphatizing with Lionel Jospin=leftist.
The story goes back and forth, not only when it comes to Bahia's and Arthur's relationship but also concerning the discussion of the national identity in France.
It's an entertaining and in a way thought-provoking film but the combination of humour and a social-political 'message', does not totally convince me. This mixture doesn't work out to well, I feel (Gunnar).
Trivia: Lionel Jospin does appear in the film during three minutes when visiting the main character in his home.
Director: Michel Leclerc.
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