OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES
France, 2006, 99 minutes, Colour.
Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, Francois Damiens.
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius.
OSS 117: LOST IN RIO
France, 2009, 101 minutes, Colour.
Jean Dujardin, Louise Monot, Rudiger Vogler.
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius.
Most audiences for these two films, when they were released, would have been astonished to learn that the director would win the Oscar for best director and his film, The Artist, would win the Oscar for best film of 2011.
Michel Hazanavicius came from a Lithuanian family who settled in Paris and made a number of short films before his feature film, Mes Amis, in 2005. He then made the two OSS comedies and then The Artist.
The star, Jean Dujardin, besides being an actor (Little White Lies) is also a stand-up comic. He won an Oscar for Best Actor in The Artist.
These two films are light spoofs, echoes of 007 and James Bond. They are set in the past, one in Cairo in 1955, the second one in Brazil. The films take great advantage of the scenic backgrounds of Egypt and Brazil.
The screenplays are tongue-in-cheek, spoofing the adventures of 007. OSS 117 is meant to be the best French agent. However, he is a man of great vanity, putting his foot into conversations badly, sexist, almost racist – and making all kinds of funny remarks (that would be at home with Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters).
The plots are negligible, the type of spy film that was popular in the 1960s (for instance James Coburn’s Flint spy comedies). Nevertheless, the very debonair-looking and sounding OSS 117 survives all kinds of mishaps, despite himself. He no sooner says he has a solution to a problem than the problem descends on him, trapping him. There are some very humorous escapes from tight spots for himself and for those associated with him.
In both films, villains are from the Nazi era, the setting of 1955 meaning that they were in the aftermath of the Third Reich. In the Rio film, there are refugees from Nazi Germany in Brazil, forming a group, wanting to initiate the Fifth Reich because the Fourth Reich had failed.
Rudiger Vogler, a classical actor from many Wim Wenders films, is the mad Nazi leader in Lost in Rio. In Cairo, the heroine is played by Hazanavicius’s wife, Berenice Bejo, who was the lead actress in The Artist.
Colourful, tongue-in-cheek, stupid, exaggerated, funny with some action sequences, these films are very slight, but now come into cinema history because of the work of the director.
1. The nature of the spoofs? Spies, films of the 60s and 70s? Send-ups? Of the chief spy, adventures?
2. The exotic settings, local colour, touristic look? Adventures and activities? The local flavour? The musical score?
3. The nature of the spoofs, on 007, on the spy’s appearance, suave manner, debonair? The situations? Traps? Escapes?
4. The stupidity of the chief spy? His self-importance? His putting his foot in it? His sexist and racist remarks? His attitudes towards the Nazis – especially in the reference to giving the Nazis their own land, parallel with Israel? His hopes for reconciliation between Jews and Nazis? Audience response?
5. His character, background, commissions from the government? His self-confidence? Going into the exotic countries, almost immediately being trapped? The escapes, bodyguards, Chinese trying to kill him? His meeting with the local authorities? The CIA, French spies? The CIA and their getting information from the Nazis and so breaking their promises?
6. The Nazi themes? The group in Egypt? The mad leader? In Brazil, the refugees from Germany? The association? OSS and his appearance (dressed like Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood)? Standing out, his speech, his being laughed at?
7. The mad leader, the pursuit, his son, the death? The car chase? The confrontation at the dam? Falling over? Hospital? The final confrontation and shootout?
8. The nature of espionage – looked at from the perspective of 21st century spoofs? The difference between the spoofs and reality?
9. The work of the director? And his subsequent international success?
