MAMMUTH

France, 2010, 90 minutes, Colour.
Gerard Depardieu, Yolande Moreau, Isabelle Adjani, Miss Ming.
Directed by Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern.

Mammuth is a small film, a star vehicle for Gerard Depardieu. Perhaps there is no leading actor in the world who is able to show his ungainly self without embarrassment on screen. This is particularly true of Mammuth. He plays a sixty-year-old worker in an abattoir for forty-five years who retires. He has never been sick, he has never missed a day. However, they give him a jigsaw puzzle as a parting gift and chew crisps while the boss is making his farewell speech.

At home, he feels idle, counting the cars that pass by. Yolande Moreau (Serafine, Micmacs) – and not far behind Depardieu in presenting in an ungainly style on screen) is his wife. He goes on his Mammuth motorbike to check on documents from employers from his past so that he can get his full pension. He is accompanied, imaginatively, by his girlfriend of the long-distant past who was killed in an accident (Isabelle Adjani).

The film is a road film, Mammuth (he gets his name from his motorbike) travelling around the countryside, meeting quite a range of people including a rather odd poetic niece. The experience changes him and prepares him for his years of retirement.

The directors also made the offbeat film, Aaltra, a road movie from France to Finland.

1.An offbeat film, comic and serious, a film about age, work, retirement, pensions, marriage?

2.The video photography style, the blurred countryside, the whirr of vision from the bikes, the hand-held camera, low-budget, home movie?

3.The town, the homes, the abattoirs, the open road, the variety of workplaces? The score?

4.The blend of realism and fantasy, the memories and flashbacks, the dreams, the poetry?

5.The strong cast?

6.The farewell to Mammuth, forty-five years, hard labour in the abattoirs, never sick, strong, carrying the carcasses, cutting them? Hard work? His professional knowledge of meat? The talk, the boss’s speech, the toast, the fellow workers chewing chips? The jigsaw puzzle and his wife’s reaction? His wife, age? His retirement, pace, walking round the house, watching and counting cars pass, the issue of pensions, going shopping, his wife not able to take his money because of policy, his chatting at the counter about the meat and the reaction?

7.His wife, her age, an old couple, weatherbeaten, working at the market, not wanting to work on the fish counter, the differences? Money difficulties? Urging Mammuth to go to the former bosses, get out the bike, her work, customers? The stealing of his mobile phone, her anger, discussions with her friend, their driving to get revenge, intentions and reality – not knowing where the thief was?

8.Mammuth, getting out his bike, the memories of his girlfriend, riding carefully on the road, the growing exhilaration?

9.His imagination, his girlfriend, her wounded face, the reality of her death, ever-present to him, speaking and guiding him?

10.Meeting his niece, her being different, meeting her friends? Her poetry, art, advice, love, family?

11.The employers and their range, the different jobs, security, the carnival, factories? Taking the cabinet with the documents and the wind blowing them away, his search in the field? Forty-five years and the man who wanted a sexual favour? The memories of his past work experience?

12.The niece, her friends, the effect, his camping out, the bath in the river?

13.His wife searching for him, his return – and hopes for a fruitful retirement?