LES COTELLETTES
France, 2003, 86 minutes, Colour.
Philippe Noiret, Michel Bouquet, Farida Rahouadji, Catherine Hiegel.
Directed by Bertrand Blier.
Bertrand Blier has long been an 'in-you-face' director. In the 70s, Les Valseuses stood out as a thumbing of nose at society and its values, with Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a couple of amoral bums who seemingly couldn't care less. It is interesting to read that Blier has commented that his two ageing gentleman in Les Cottellettes are Les Valseuses in old age. While Philippe Noiret and Michel Bouquet have political and social stances, they are still ready to let les valseuses out, give them frank and crass voice and challenge everyone and everything even, at the end, Death.
Opened out from a play, the characters move in and out of homes and landscapes, with instant ease, creating a surreal dialogue between the self-satisfied bourgeois Noiret and the irritating man who came to dinner, Bouquet. They range over a wide number of subjects in their prolonged conversation including politics and social issues (but regularly returning to sexuality which is the most preoccupying topic). Suddenly, they have their way with Death so that their maid, whom they love, will not die, and a musical number breaks out and then the movie stops.
It is something like French commercials which, instead of a narrative, offer some exotic poses, some enigmatic behaviour and an aesthetic exercise and leave it to the audience to work out what it is all about.
1. The work of Blier, from the 70s, in your face? His past characters as rebels, growing old in this film?
2. The film based on a play, the décor, the rooms, the sequences filmed outside in the fields and the streets? The butcher shop? The finale with the musical?
3. Reality/fantasy? Characters appearing within realistic situations? The ending, the raping of Death, the musical?
4. The effect for audiences in terms of moral farce, amoral farce? Social satire, critique? The bluntness of the attack?
5. The verbal jousting between the two ageing actors, the earthiness, the crassness (and the discussions about toilet cleaning), political, social - and always returning to sexuality?
6. The visual style of the film, its impact, jokes? The misogynist attitude of the film, sexuality as seen mainly as gratifying men? The final attack on Death?
7. Philippe Noiret and his long tradition in films, screen presence, at the table, the knocking on the door, his anger, his son and his worry about his sexuality, his mistress and his wife walking out? The arguments? The old man coming to annoy him? Their getting into discussions, his following him from room to room, through the fields, through the streets? His age, sixty-four, broken marriage? The appearance of his wife and her angers? His son, the son's relationship with Agathe? Nacifa and his compassion for her, the maid, his explanation, listening to her? The discussions with the old man and discovering more about Nacifa? Her husband bashing her with a chair? Their looking after her? Sexuality and Nacifa? Sexuality and Death? To save Nacifa?
8. Michel Bouquet and his long tradition of acting, screen presence? The old man knocking on the door, coming to annoy people? The story of his life, his right-wing stances compared with the left-wing of the other man? The long explanation of how you can tell somebody from the left from somebody from the right? His own encounters with Nacifa, employing her, paying her, letting her sleep and rest? The sexual advances? His sexual talk? Walking, making the other man follow him? Political, social comments?
9. Nacifa as the maid, on the bus, downcast, seemingly over her age? Supporting her family? Her brutal husband, his sexual attack? His beating her with the chair? Coming to both men, their treatment of her, her allowing them to use her sexually? Her wanting respect from the younger man?
10. The husband, his coming to argue, his brutality towards his wife?
11. The role of Death, confronting the two men, her trying to do her job, turning up at various times? The sexual interaction at the end - in taste, credibility? The farcical meaning - and whether it worked or not?
12. The musical dance at the end - style, to what purpose?
13. How significant the effect of this kind of social satire? For the French? For different cultures?
