This is the last of my 13 HKIFF films and without a doubt, the only one in which I left the cinema in a lighter mood than when I got in. To put it briefly: it was simply hilarious from start to finish. This is a film by Emmanuel Mouret, starring himself as Jean-Jacques, Frédérique Bel as Ariane(his wife) Judith Gordrèche as Elizabeth, Déborah François as Aneth (her lovely maid).
As the film opens, we find a distraught Jean-Jacques waiting impatiently for his wife Ariane to be ready for their weekly love-making. The alarm clock rang. It was 6 o'clock. But he swore he set it at 7 a.m. His wife was still fast asleep. No attempt by him to wake her up resulted in success. When he did, she said, it was not yet 7. So Jean-Jacques had to distract himself with some other meaningless occupation. When her wife woke up, she wanted to finish the novel which she had not completed the night before. So he had to wait some more. He wanted to make a coffee to wake her up. He went to the kitchen. No more coffee. So he rushed out in his morning gown to the corner coffee shop, bought one and brought it back, whilst her wife continued to be engrossed in her reading. He waited patiently for her pleasure. Finally, she put down her book! He rushed into bed and started to hug her. She pushed him away. She said the ending of the novel was so sad that she was still completely overwhelmed by it and was just not in the right mood! Then he complained to his darling that he had waited for the entire week for this moment and that the whole week long he could think of nothing else. Then Ariane looked at the rueful expression on his face, took pity of him and consented. He was so happy and started. Then the telephone rang! He said he was very busy. But the voice on the other side apparently would have none of it. He repeated that it was rather inconvenient at that moment and if the other one minded to call later. He then resumed his unfinished business for half a minute. The telephone rang again. He said it was still not yet convenient and if the other side would leave an address, he would be there. He took it down. Then Ariane asked him who it was and whether it was a woman. He mumbled a ...yes. Then Ariane asked why she was calling him so early on a Saturday morning. He then said it was a long story and asked her whether she really wanted to hear it. She said she wanted to.
Then he told her how he met a man at the bar who said his wife had died and since then, he had a different girl each week and that he had developed a special line with women which worked everytime and so every man at the bar was interested and asked what that line was. He said he didn't even have a say a single word. He just needed to write a little note and it worked like magic. There was not a single woman who would not fall for it. He wrote them out for them. The others took a brief look and were off in a jiffy to try that out. He was left all alone on that bar table and decided to leave too. Whilst doing so, in his disappointment at his friends' desertion, he absent minded put that note into his suit pocket.
And then when he was sitting alone on one of the two seats at very last row of an airplane, he felt very bored and start fidgeting in his seat. By accident, he felt something in his pocket. He took it out. It was that note the boastful man wrote! It gave him an idea. It just happened that there was a lady sitting on the aisle opposite to him, also alone at the last row. She looked quite pretty. Partly from curiosity or partly from desire, he decided to try that note on her and asked the air hostess to pass that little note to her. And it was that woman who was calling twice that morning and when she was calling him to go to her place that evening he just said yes to stop her pestering her again with her insistent calls. But he told Ariane that he would definitely not go. But she was furious that the thought even occured to him and refused to continue the love-making. But after a while, she returned from the bathroom and said she had changed her mind. She said that she had done some serious thinking about the matter and had come to decision. She said that they were married so long and that it was natural that he should be curious about other women and rather than having to be subjected constantly to such temptations, why not succumb to it once and then get it over and done with once and for all? He said he did not want to go. She then said that he must go, for the sake of their marriage and that it would please her if he did because then she could ease her mind forever and as she was a reasonable wife, she understood and she wanted to be fair to him. So when the time came, he dressed up and took a bottle of cheap wine. But before he left the house, he said he'd just go and tell her off and then come back immediately.
Then he told her how he met a man at the bar who said his wife had died and since then, he had a different girl each week and that he had developed a special line with women which worked everytime and so every man at the bar was interested and asked what that line was. He said he didn't even have a say a single word. He just needed to write a little note and it worked like magic. There was not a single woman who would not fall for it. He wrote them out for them. The others took a brief look and were off in a jiffy to try that out. He was left all alone on that bar table and decided to leave too. Whilst doing so, in his disappointment at his friends' desertion, he absent minded put that note into his suit pocket.
And then when he was sitting alone on one of the two seats at very last row of an airplane, he felt very bored and start fidgeting in his seat. By accident, he felt something in his pocket. He took it out. It was that note the boastful man wrote! It gave him an idea. It just happened that there was a lady sitting on the aisle opposite to him, also alone at the last row. She looked quite pretty. Partly from curiosity or partly from desire, he decided to try that note on her and asked the air hostess to pass that little note to her. And it was that woman who was calling twice that morning and when she was calling him to go to her place that evening he just said yes to stop her pestering her again with her insistent calls. But he told Ariane that he would definitely not go. But she was furious that the thought even occured to him and refused to continue the love-making. But after a while, she returned from the bathroom and said she had changed her mind. She said that she had done some serious thinking about the matter and had come to decision. She said that they were married so long and that it was natural that he should be curious about other women and rather than having to be subjected constantly to such temptations, why not succumb to it once and then get it over and done with once and for all? He said he did not want to go. She then said that he must go, for the sake of their marriage and that it would please her if he did because then she could ease her mind forever and as she was a reasonable wife, she understood and she wanted to be fair to him. So when the time came, he dressed up and took a bottle of cheap wine. But before he left the house, he said he'd just go and tell her off and then come back immediately.
We were then shown the man in a Paris street in a neighborhood with which he appeared completely unfamiliar. He was seen with a note in hand, looking first at the number outside one house, then another, then another. And finally, he found it. He pressed the door code. The first, the second, the third....then the 13th! The door opened. He got into the lobby. It was a very big a spacious lobby. Outside another big wooden door, there was a 7 foot black security guard in a swell suit. He asked him who he wanted to see. She gave the first name, Elizabeth. He was asked Elizabeth who? He could not answer. Then he was asked what floor and what number. He then said 4th floor and gave the number and showed the slip he carried with him. The man said yes, that's where she lived. Then he was asked to hold up both hands into a T-shape for a body check and was frisked. The man found something in his inside jacket pocket. It appeared to be something hard. He asked him what it was. He took it out. It was a 10 inch metal tube. He was asked what did it do. He said it was a gadget that he had invented. He said it performed magically. It could give a man an instant moustache which could be wiped off with just a plain tissue! The security guard looked puzzled. So he demonstrated how it worked. It did. Then the security guard asked him what about that thing in his other pocket. He said it was the same, except that this one would give a blue moustache instead of a black one. The guard was not convinced. So he had to demonstrate again. But this time, he could not wipe it off. He felt embarrassed and said that sometimes, the manufacturer would make tiny mistakes or perhaps he could not wipe it off because he was using the same tissue and there might be some interaction between the two colour dyes. Anyway he eventually got it off with another tissue. The guard was satisfied. He opened the big woooden door for him and gave him back the bottle of wine that he passed over to him whilst he was asked to hold up both hands for the body check.
He reached a lift. He pressed the lift button. A lift came. He entered. Then he stood inside dumbfounded. There were no lift buttons for different floors! Then as he was wondering, a female voice asked him what floor would he like. He said "quatrième". Then the female voice asked again, He repeated his answer. The female voice continued to ask. He repeated the same answer. It was the same. So the next time, he said "quatrième étage". Still he was asked the same question, He repeated. Finally, he said rather peevishly, "Quatrième étage, s'il vous plait!" The lift door closed. When he got to the 4th floor, he found himself inside a very luxurious lobby, with African masks as wall decorations and expensive looking oriental vases on the mantel and on the floor. He waited. Nobody came. Then after an eternity, a door opened. A beautiful young lady came out. She told him that Elizabeth knew that he had arrived and would come down shortly and in the meantime, he should wait there. So he waited.
After waiting for what seemed another eternity, he felt bored. So he looked around. He found a small oriental floral vase. He approached and examined it. It had a small aperture on top. He looked inside and appeared to have discovered something inside it but was not sure what it was. He looked again. Then he inserted his index finger into it to try to reach it. But when he pulled it out, his finger got stuck. He pulled hard. It did not get his finger out. So he tried again and again and still it got stuck. Then suddenly the lift door opened. Two oriental gentlemen came out, in suits and all smiles and bows. Upon seeing them, he immediately put the hand with the vase behind his back. The two gentlemen approached him still all smiles. Both of them extended their right hands to him for a polite handshake. He did not reach out his right hand. He could not. They extended their hands again and again, bowing and smiling to him. Still he did not take out his right hand. Then finally he could no longer resist their courtesy. He took out his right hand, with the vase dangling at his index. The two gentleman realized his problem. One of them, a shorter one in a swallow tail, then ordered the other to help him. The other said loudly, "Hike" and started instantly after making another bow. He pulled. It did not come out. He pulled again, It did not come out. The other saw what happened, so he joined in to pull. He put both his hands around the waist of the first and both of them started to forcefully bend their bodies backward. They pulled and pulled while Jean-Jacques also drew his body backward in the opposite direction. Finally, it came out! But the backward force of the two oriental gentleman, suddenly left without the force of Jean Jacques's pull in the other direction, fell backwards and broke a much bigger expensive looking oriental vase behind them. Then the lift door opened again. A tall man came out. He saw all three of them on the floor with broken pieces of the bigger vase beside them. They exchanged greetings. The two oriental gentlemen addressed the European man as "Monsieur le President" and "Monsieur le President" addressed one of the oriental gentlemen as "Monsieur Ambassador de Japon"!
And the film continued with one slapstick following closely upon another, practically non-stop right up to the very end of the film! There were other scenes showing Jean Jacques in all types of impossible situations e. g. with his zipper acccidentally zipping its tiny teeth into a gauze window lace such that he could not move further than the longest extension of that window lace, where he had to hide under a tall Louvre style tall back chair to undo his zipper and in the meantime being unable to stand up while party guests streamed towards him to shake his hand as he was supposed to be the guest of honour of that party and he had to just stick his head out from time to time behind the tall back of the chair like a dwarf and just extended his hand to them at that level and then quickly vanish behind it, a scene in the toilet in which he was seen by another guest coming into the toilet just when he was just sticking his finger to explore a hole below a naked female marble statue sitting on another decorative toilet, where the vagina was and a further scene when the former fierce boxing champion with a known reputation for bad temper which his new found girlfriend has just dumped without informing him about it, forcing his way in to visit her despite orders that he would not be allowed into the party and how he managed to avoid being hit, another in which he accidently knocked her girl friend out when he tried to close a door the effect of which was that that for the first time in years, she would be sleeping soundly despite her insomnia, another in which he was seen by his neighbor in a room with 4 lovely young girls in their pajamas and how he did his best to avoid being seen, another in which his wife recounted to him how he met the man with the magic ladies-killer chat up formula.......
And the film continued with one slapstick following closely upon another, practically non-stop right up to the very end of the film! There were other scenes showing Jean Jacques in all types of impossible situations e. g. with his zipper acccidentally zipping its tiny teeth into a gauze window lace such that he could not move further than the longest extension of that window lace, where he had to hide under a tall Louvre style tall back chair to undo his zipper and in the meantime being unable to stand up while party guests streamed towards him to shake his hand as he was supposed to be the guest of honour of that party and he had to just stick his head out from time to time behind the tall back of the chair like a dwarf and just extended his hand to them at that level and then quickly vanish behind it, a scene in the toilet in which he was seen by another guest coming into the toilet just when he was just sticking his finger to explore a hole below a naked female marble statue sitting on another decorative toilet, where the vagina was and a further scene when the former fierce boxing champion with a known reputation for bad temper which his new found girlfriend has just dumped without informing him about it, forcing his way in to visit her despite orders that he would not be allowed into the party and how he managed to avoid being hit, another in which he accidently knocked her girl friend out when he tried to close a door the effect of which was that that for the first time in years, she would be sleeping soundly despite her insomnia, another in which he was seen by his neighbor in a room with 4 lovely young girls in their pajamas and how he did his best to avoid being seen, another in which his wife recounted to him how he met the man with the magic ladies-killer chat up formula.......
It was a Jacques Tati type of French humour, totally situational and totally dependent upon the acting skill of the actors. And Emmanuel Mouret was excellent as such kind of actor. He had an innocent looking face and when the situation required, the expression on his face would instantly transform itself from one of utter embarrassement and frustration into that with an absolutely "sunny smile" or into an exquisitely "normal" face. As in all kinds of comedy, the secret is in timing. And Emmanuel Mouret is a master in precise timing. It was really a wonderful closing film for me for my Easter holidays film gala. I could not have asked for a better conclusion to these 6 days of hectic viewing and enormous enjoyment!
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