CHAIRE DU CINEMA
Two flicks for Saturday, chez moi, by initials B.B. (Bertrand Blier)
MENAGE (1986)
Menage (1986) — Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou, Michel Blanc
It is a cross between a dress and a moustache, a parody of dominance. The film sprawls hilariously, like a knocked-off line of dominoes flying across a room where an elephant in a tutu licks a mirror.
The first two thirds run brilliantly, but toward the ending, the leaps it makes rock the boat. It starts to resemble a TV film because some scenes are too on the nose. I say it is a problem of montage.
Depardieu, as a homosexual, provides all the comedy. Miou-Miou and Michel Blanc nail the full extent of their larger-than-life disasters.
BEAU-PERE (1981)
Beau-pére (1981) — Patrick Deware, Maurice Ronet, Nathalie Baye, Ariel Besse
Thematic punchline: Unbelivable shit that Bertrand Blier got away with.
Intimation: Maurice Ronet always possesses a screen presence, simultaneously stern and childlike, an ambiguous elegance from a source that obscures as it shines. Forever colored by the tragedy of Le Feu follet in my mind, chiseled by Louis Malle, he creates a mirror effect for me. He embodies a physical sentiment, a resonance of my own emotional likeness. Like a living painting, Ronet, much like Lino Ventura, David Hemmings, Vahi Öz, or Salvo Randone, bears an internal mark of familiarity – of what I consider truly mine.
Different aspects of my being breathe through them, irrespective of their roles. For instance, Belmondo’s role in Pierrot le Fou does the opposite. He is acting me; I am that guy who blows himself up in the face with poetry. It’s a strange pin to prick, but take this slit and do what you will.