France 2008
Directed by
Christophe Barrratier
120 minutes
Rated M
Reviewed by
Sharon Hurst
Paris 36
Synopsis: Pigoil (Gerard Jugnot) has worked for 35 years as stage manager at a Paris music hall called Chansonia. He and his stage hands are staunchly left-wing, but as right-wing politics emerges in the 1930s, the venue is shut down. With the help of comedian, Jacky (Kad Merad), Pigoil determines to re-open the club but needs a chanteuse (a singer) to bring in the crowds. When Douce (Nora Arnezeder) turns up, he thinks he may have found the secret to success. But of course life is not always so simple.If you like light and breezy feel-good French films then this is one for you. Certainly music-hall lovers will get a real kick from it but for the same reason some will find it blandly innocuous. Even when dire things are happening - street brawls, anti-Semitic bashings, children being abducted - this film assumes a pose of insouciance that to me came across more as irritating superficiality. Whilst much of the character of the period is brought to the script and everything looks very handsome the characters’ behaviour didn’t ring true for me and this meant I was not able to engage in the fiction whicih ultimately is grounded in reality.
So many archetypal (or, if you will,hackneyed) French motifs appear, not the least being the accordion music. In many scenes the film feels self-consciously saccharin-sweet in it old-fashioned stylings, as when Douce is singing and Pigoil goes all misty-eyed. Pigoil has a son Jojo (Maxence Perrin), a budding accordion protégé and here again scenes of his “genius” sorely stretch the bounds of credibility. And talking of lack of credibility, the old theatre which the crew resurrects could never have staged the sort of final piece that the film delivers. Did I mention the old orchestra conductor Max, who years ago knew Douce’s mother, and magically turns up again to help the show out? You get the picture – despite being grounded in historical reality, and in a milieu that is certainly entertaining in its own right, the film wallows in nostalgic fantasy and melodrama. Perhaps this should be no surprise when we remember that director Barratier was also responsible for Les Choristes, another “sweet” (but more successfully realized) film starring Jugnot as a choirmaster with the magic touch of getting naughty boys to behave through singing.
Despite all my grizzling, there will be devotees of the musical genre who will get a lot of enjoyment out of this blast-from-the-past and the Piaf-style singing is certainly a treat.
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