A Tale of Two French Movies
Jun. 27th, 2009 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerFirst, Priceless, a romantic comedy starring Audrey Tatou. I adore Audrey Tatou, so any film involving her being awesome and looking fabulous is right up my alley.
And indeed! This film involves Audrey Tatou being awesome and looking fabulous! She plays Irene, a high class gold digger with expensive tastes who has a fling with a fellow named Jean. She thinks he’s wealthy enough for her; but alas for them both, he’s only a totally smitten bartender.
After Irene’s sugar daddy finds out about the fling and abandons her, Jean follows her to Paris and bankrupts himself trying to win her heart. (Irene tells him repeatedly to give it up; it’s hardly her fault he won’t listen.)
But fortunately for Jean, just when he’s about to get hauled off to the police for unpaid bills, a wealthy woman swoops down and snaps him up to be her companion.
And then Irene gives him lessons in how to be a good kept man. (No, not like that. You and your pervy minds.) There is no way to describe how awesome these scenes are. Oh, or the scenes where they’re carrying on their affair right under the noses of their wealthy patrons. Oh, the hijinks. Oh, the hilarity. Oh, the exquisite clothes and the pratfalls and adorableness.
If Ernst Lubitsch, who was the best director ever of screwball comedies in the thirties (see Ninotchka! It’s brilliant and funny and Russian themed), could have directed a film in 2006 – this would be the film he’d directed. Glittering, funny, racy but not vulgar – it’s a wonderful, charming film, and I loved it.
And second, L’Auberge Espagnole, which I did not enjoy.
The film takes its title from the apartment the characters all share, and I dislike the movie because the roommates all seem like such rotten people. Our hero, Xavier, cheats on his girlfriend with a married woman. One of his buddies finds out that one of his ex-girlfriends has his baby, and proceeds to do absolutely nothing about it; which scarcely dents his relationship with his new girlfriend, another apartment member.
Or then there’s the token lesbian, who exists to give Xavier lessons in how to touch a woman properly (apparently none of his girlfriends could quite explain) and to inform him that “All women are sluts.” Presumably the producers thought this would be less obnoxious coming out of a woman’s mouth, but no, no, not really.
I find that quote especially annoying given that the movie is otherwise VERY FIRMLY ANTI-STEREOTYPING (although, ironically, some of the characters are only distinguishable by their accents). Aside from that quote, which clearly the producers felt didn’t count, the roommates are all way too awesome to let a stereotyped comment pass their lips. Everything else they will do, but that Rubicon they will not cross, and therefore are good people no matter what other trifling sins they commit.
I feel that I should back up and qualify this: of course making rude, stereotyped comments about other people is a bad thing, but it’s only one of a great many bad things a person can do, and it probably won’t get you past the third circle of hell, you know? Whereas abandoning your knocked-up girlfriend has to be at least the fourth or fifth.
It’s like, these characters have this skin deep glaze of respectability, the ability to say the right things in the right way, without any real goodness to back that up. They respect the idea of people, but in the specific, in the real people they meet, they treat them terribly.
And I have nothing against respectability; I think courtesy is an important part of being a good person, and someone who can’t be bothered to be polite almost certainly does not respect you, deep down inside. But respectability, with no goodness to back it up, is a terrible goal, and the idea that this is the best Europe has to offer makes me want to tear my teeth out.
And indeed! This film involves Audrey Tatou being awesome and looking fabulous! She plays Irene, a high class gold digger with expensive tastes who has a fling with a fellow named Jean. She thinks he’s wealthy enough for her; but alas for them both, he’s only a totally smitten bartender.
After Irene’s sugar daddy finds out about the fling and abandons her, Jean follows her to Paris and bankrupts himself trying to win her heart. (Irene tells him repeatedly to give it up; it’s hardly her fault he won’t listen.)
But fortunately for Jean, just when he’s about to get hauled off to the police for unpaid bills, a wealthy woman swoops down and snaps him up to be her companion.
And then Irene gives him lessons in how to be a good kept man. (No, not like that. You and your pervy minds.) There is no way to describe how awesome these scenes are. Oh, or the scenes where they’re carrying on their affair right under the noses of their wealthy patrons. Oh, the hijinks. Oh, the hilarity. Oh, the exquisite clothes and the pratfalls and adorableness.
If Ernst Lubitsch, who was the best director ever of screwball comedies in the thirties (see Ninotchka! It’s brilliant and funny and Russian themed), could have directed a film in 2006 – this would be the film he’d directed. Glittering, funny, racy but not vulgar – it’s a wonderful, charming film, and I loved it.
And second, L’Auberge Espagnole, which I did not enjoy.
The film takes its title from the apartment the characters all share, and I dislike the movie because the roommates all seem like such rotten people. Our hero, Xavier, cheats on his girlfriend with a married woman. One of his buddies finds out that one of his ex-girlfriends has his baby, and proceeds to do absolutely nothing about it; which scarcely dents his relationship with his new girlfriend, another apartment member.
Or then there’s the token lesbian, who exists to give Xavier lessons in how to touch a woman properly (apparently none of his girlfriends could quite explain) and to inform him that “All women are sluts.” Presumably the producers thought this would be less obnoxious coming out of a woman’s mouth, but no, no, not really.
I find that quote especially annoying given that the movie is otherwise VERY FIRMLY ANTI-STEREOTYPING (although, ironically, some of the characters are only distinguishable by their accents). Aside from that quote, which clearly the producers felt didn’t count, the roommates are all way too awesome to let a stereotyped comment pass their lips. Everything else they will do, but that Rubicon they will not cross, and therefore are good people no matter what other trifling sins they commit.
I feel that I should back up and qualify this: of course making rude, stereotyped comments about other people is a bad thing, but it’s only one of a great many bad things a person can do, and it probably won’t get you past the third circle of hell, you know? Whereas abandoning your knocked-up girlfriend has to be at least the fourth or fifth.
It’s like, these characters have this skin deep glaze of respectability, the ability to say the right things in the right way, without any real goodness to back that up. They respect the idea of people, but in the specific, in the real people they meet, they treat them terribly.
And I have nothing against respectability; I think courtesy is an important part of being a good person, and someone who can’t be bothered to be polite almost certainly does not respect you, deep down inside. But respectability, with no goodness to back it up, is a terrible goal, and the idea that this is the best Europe has to offer makes me want to tear my teeth out.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 11:30 pm (UTC)I've heard his movie Valet is even better than Priceless. Have you seen it? Is this true?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-29 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 03:51 am (UTC)I did really appreciate the fact that he doesn't cheat on his girlfriend with the supermodel, though. I was worried about that, because it seemed like a scenario set up for that sort of thing, but no - not only did he not cheat, but he was a gentleman to the supermodel forced to live in his apartment.
I also liked that the supermodel had a character beyond being astoundingly hot. She wasn't the most clearly delineated character in the world, but none of the characters were really - which I think is why I didn't like it as much as Priceless; the characters felt so much thinner.