The film is about recently retired Serge Pilardosse, who goes on a journey to find documents from his old places of work which he needs in order to claim his pension. I have to admit, this does sound incredibly boring at first, but it's so much more emotional than it would appear.
There's no way you could say what genre this film was. There's a bit of everything in there- it can be funny, sad, romantic, uplifting, almost scary, and at times, just really, really odd.
One of the things I enjoyed about it was the fact that the characters in the film included a ghost of Serge's ex-girlfriend, who seems to go with him on his journey. Despite being covered in blood, she's not at all scary (a good thing for me, seeing as I hate horror films). What was more unsettling was Serge's neice, 'Miss Ming', who created strange sculptures out of plastic dolls and stuffed toys.
Despite this, however, I don't think you could call this a scary film. Serge's wife, Catherine, has a particularly funny role- one of my favourite scenes was one in which she is faced with the task of spelling out her surname to a computerised voice over the phone. You can imagine what this scene contains, but the predictability doesn't make it any less hilarious.
The film itself was made very well. There were parts which were filmed in the style of an old home video, all grainy and yellow-ish, with the picture shaking as if the camera is being held by a hand. I think it brought the audience closer to the character; it made the film feel more personal and almost nostalgic. I loved it!
What added to this was the scenes in which noises or conversations from the past were played over a scene in the present, for example, when Serge visits an empty restaurant that he once worked at and hears the noises that could have been heard when the restaurant was still open.
The character Serge was played by Gérard Depardieu, and this part really showed off his acting abilities. Do I really need to say this, though? Being a big fan of "Jean de Florette", I have always like him, and have always thought he is a wonderful actor, and I'm sure there's not many people who would disagree.
So, overall, a great film, see it if you can. A word of warning, though, I wouldn't advise going to see this with anyone elderly, or your parents, or anyone who is disgusted by rather large, rather old, naked men (and that's not the worst of it).
But anyway, I think this film deserves:
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Au revoir for now,
Caitlin
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