Milou En Mai

Milou (Michel Piccoli) is the eldest son of a comfortable but divergent bourgeois family whose mother dies suddenly, leaving them to squabble over the inheritance which is principally a picturesque but decrepit villa near Bourdeaux that is home to Milou. Events take place in May, 1968, famous as the month that student revolution seemed poised to overthrow bourgeois society. Against this vernal, serio-comic backdrop, a gaggle of "may fools" (the film's US title) assemble to bury maman and divide the spoils.

It is as if Malle and his co-scenarist, Jean-Claude Carrière, once Nouvelle Vague alumni, had set-about to produce a French version of a Robert Altman film and the outcome is very similar - genial, whimsical entertainment with a wry appreciation of the human comedy that unfolds with the same seemingly effortless grace that characterizes the Stéphane Grappelli gypsy swing music which scores it.  Although the film tends the wear a little thin in its latter stages as the group briefly flee the supposedly impending Communist takeover, the script is as smooth as silk with a typically French celebration of l'amour (although this gets a little dodgy when it comes the ogling of an eight or nine year-old girl) with a well-drawn typology of characters realized by consistently strong performances

Available from: Madman

 

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