ADIEU LES CONS/BYE, BYE MORONS
France, 2020, 87 minutes, Colour.
Albert Dupontel, Virginie Elfira, Nicolas Marie, Jackie Berroyer, Philippe Urban.
Directed by Albert Dupontel.
Not a particularly flattering title! And, a touch of spoiler, the morons are generally stereotypical bureaucrats.
This film is dedicated to Monty Python collaborator, Terry Jones. Jones had appeared in two films by the director, Albert Dupontel. Dupontel acknowledges the influence of the zany Monty Python comedies. This is reinforced by the appearance of Python, Terry Gilliam, in a commercial within the film.
And, zany it is, to say the least.
In fact, it is a humorous blend of the real and the surreal, the blend of the world of ordinary people like the desperate hairdresser, Suze played by Virginia Elfira who is diagnosed with terminal illness because of the sprays that she inhaled over the years in her work in her salon, but who is determined to find the child that she gave birth to at 15 and who was immediately sent out for adoption. On the other hand, there are the characters from strange bureaucratic worlds (and a reminder that Terry Gilliasm directed the even more surreal/real world of Brazil). The chief of these characters is an IT expert played by the director himself, Albert Dupontel, Jean- Baptiste.
Jean- Baptiste is 50ish, a loner, expert, highly skilled, treated warily by authorities, let go for the up-and-coming. What is he to do – buy a gun, set it up to kill himself, the firing sending the barrel skewiff, the bullet going through an office wall and wounding one of the young experts who have been hired to take Jean-Baptiste’? place. He has to go on the run, encounters Suze, and the race is on for him to use his hacking skills to find the adopted child. Their adventures, serious, comic, slapstick, involve a blind archivist with the public records and the surgeon who assisted in the birth but who has dementia.
A lot of slapstick, bizarre, zany comedy – including the blind archivist driving the car along Paris streets, eventually with some smash and crash.
And, to bring it to a close, the secret police closing in on Jean- Baptiste, Suze watching her son and a whole romantic atmosphere as she sees his IT talent but his awkwardness and his reluctance to declare his love, except in anonymous poems, for his charming co-worker.
It is one of those expect-the-unexpected comedies, French style.
1. The title? Jean- Baptiste’s comment on his pursuers?
2. The blend of realism and surrealism? The dedicated to Terry Jones? The Monty Python tradition? Zany comedy? (And the appearance of Terry Gilliam in the commercial?) Setting the tone of the comic and the serious?
3. The French city, ordinary, streets, homes and apartments? Government offices? Technological laboratories? The musical score?
4. The intense IT world and its reach?
5. The range of eccentric characters? Surreal? Yet anchored in many realities?
6. Jean- Baptiste, his age, lonely, unmarried, at home, at work, his talents and skills, the authorities, removing him from his work? The secret police and their investigations? Jean- Baptiste reaction, the gun, the suicide attempt, failure, escaping, the encounter with Suze? The comic pratfalls and slapstick? His becoming involved in her case? Going to the archives? The blind archivist and his story? His helping, the address, the search for the house? The documents, the surgeon and his dementia, his diaries, going to visit his wife and her deciphering them? The continued pursuit, Jean- Baptiste continually working on his computer, extraordinary access? Suze finding her son, Jean Baptiste and his help?
7. Suze and her story, her age, hairdresser, going to the doctor, the diagnosis, terminally ill, the sprays at her salon and the effect on her, her life, the flashbacks to her adolescence, wild life, her look, dancing, social, the sexual encounter, her pregnancy, the reaction of her mother, the hospital and the delivery of the baby, signing the documents, its being taken from her? Facing death and her wanting to find the child? Her history of searching for the child, bureaucratic bungling and delays? The encounter with Jean- Baptiste, comic, serious, his decision to help her? The archives, the blind archivist, his finding the documents, his memories, guiding them in the car? And the later comic aspects of his driving and crashing the car? The reaction of the agents? Going to the doctor, his dementia, the diary, his wife? The first address and the wrong son? Tracking down the location of her son, his life, IT, infatuated with the co-worker, living near her, following? Suze and the appearance of her younger self? Suze and the fulfilment of her hopes?
8. The blind archivist, the comic aspects, the explanation of the accident and his blindness? His personality, eager, well-dressed, cane, helping with the search, the documents, guiding in the streets, participating in all the action, driving the car and crash?
9. The pathos of the surgeon, genial, his dementia, the interview, his diary, his wife interpreting it, the leads? His wheelchair, getting out, some kind of rehabilitation, taxi, going home to his wife?
10. The young man, adopted, IT work, genius, his infatuation, moving his apartment, the poems to the young woman?
11. The comedy of the trio watching the young man, his office, Jean- Baptiste manipulating the lights, the elevators, getting the couple together? The urging of the young man to declare his love, his reluctance, the eventual bonding?
12. French zany comedy?
