MARIUS AND JEANNETTE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. New Yorker Films Director: Robert Guediguian Writer: Robert Guediguian & Jean-Louis Milesi Cast: Ariane Ascaride, Gerard Meylan, Pascale Roberts, Jacques Boudet, Frederique Bonnal, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Laetitia Pesenti, Miloud Nacer, Pierre Banderet.
Yuppies have been gloried by recent films as saviors of the exploited ("Rainmaker") and depicted as brutal and scheming ("In the Company of Men"). Working class folks have been portrayed as brutal and vulgar ("Nil by Mouth") and as saintly guides to those with little hope of finding any job ("Twentyfourseven"). Robert Guediguian, who directed "Marius and Jeannette" calling upon his own background in Estaque, a poor, working-class district in the northern part of Marseilles, is irresistibly sympathetic to his own class. The forty-five year old filmmaker put his own wife, Ariane Ascaride, in the principal role to create a film which has surprisingly garnered great attention in France, where three million unemployed and a labor force increasingly anxious about downsizing connect with a romantic fable of two lonely people who find happiness with each other in a district only four hours' train ride from Paris but light years away in ambiance. In one scene which takes place in a tony restaurant, Guediguian portrays one professional couple as an attractive but antiseptic pair whose conversation over wine consists of comparing notes on debenture bonds. The one conspicuously working-class duo may have more anxieties about the prices of this establishment but seem a lot happier-- just thrilled to be where they are.
The Jeannette (Ariane Ascaride) and the Marius (Gerard Meylan) of the story, who have the good fortune to meet each other under less than favorable circumstances but develop a solid bond, sometimes seem a mere background, as Guediguian wants his viewers to capture the soul of a district which few tourists will ever visit. The neighborhood he portrays may be poor, the houses shabby and in need of paint, and the lodgings so close together that they seem carved out of a large old home by an ambitious landlord. But the society of women who congregate on the stairs would not have it any other way. They love to chat about the men, just as women probably do the world over, easing their jabs with broad smiles as if to say that no matter what the faults of the macho set, they're glad the males are around.
The folksy charm of the neighborhood, its ever-present hills so typical of the colorful vicinities of Europe, is contrasted favorably with the aseptic look of the huge supermarket where Jeannette works as a low-paid cashier. She is harassed repeatedly by her boss for her failure to sit up straight as she rolls the produce through the automated price machine, but responds with unconcealed hostility just short of what would get her fired. When she has a mini-breakdown, getting on the store microphone to exhort the customers to "buy everything-- create jobs--get useless things," she forfeits even the minimal income she uses to support herself and her two lovely kids, the pretty Magali (Laetitia Pescenti) and the playful Malek (Miloud Nacer). Caught by a guard, Marius (Gerard Meylan) when she tries to steal paint from a cement plant, she returns to her home, quite surprised to see this sentinel turn up shortly thereafter with an offer to paint her house for free. The romance begins.
Each time Guediguian gets us involved in the courtship, he cuts away to illustrate the mood of the surroundings as the women gather daily to commiserate, to laugh, and to trade homespun philosophies. The most serious of the gang is a sixty-ish individual who had spent time in a Nazi concentration camp because of her communist leanings and, looking at the economic status of capitalist France today decides that for the most part her convictions were on the money. One old guy, Justin (Jacques Boudet), has been a long time dinner guest of a woman he adores, who cooks beans for him and shares her bottles of wine. At one point Justin gives a couple of boys a lecture on the evils of extremist thinking, calling fundamentalists the sorts of people who want everyone to see the world as a uniformly gray place. The authenticity of the actors is furthered by their unprofessional status. These are real, salt-of-the-earth people who seem more human than those who make the political and economic decisions that determine their fate. The most humorous part of the film arrives toward the end as Marius, for reasons made known only later, suddenly leaves Jeannette, while the community pitches in to get them together once again.
"Marius and Jeannette" is one of those films that could be described as pleasant enough, one without the originality that critics are so fond of seeking, but Guediguian wears his heart on his sleeve and has given us a tender, humorous and sometimes biting commentary on the lives of the people with whom he feels comfortable. Not Rated. Running time: 102 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews