Movie Confessions contd....

Reading back my last post leaves me disappointed. What a mess ! There were so many things going on in my head that it did not came out as they were supposed to in the post. It was like firing randomly in air or trying to join dots but making a mess of it. Maybe I was high on ice cream. Anyways, I hope the two or three people who read this blog occasionally will ignore it.

Moving on to the current post. Finally, after a long wait, I got the chance this week to see the movie I had been eager to see. I had read about it at many places and even saw the trailer and was dying to see it, maybe because I could relate to it. So, here is a review of the movie. Some of my previous reviews are here, here, here and here.

The Intouchables (Intouchables - France)

The movie is based on a real life story and portrays the relationship between a super rich aristocratic white french man who is completely paralyzed from neck to toe and a poor uneducated unemployed black immigrant from Senegal brought up in France (In real life, the latter was an Algerian). The character of the rich guy, Phillipe is played by Francois Cluzet and that of the black guy, Driss is played by Omar Sy. I must confess that I have seen Francois Cluzet in a couple of other French movies like Little White Lies etc and found him really funny.

The movie starts with Phillipe interviewing for a helper/assistant for his daily activities and Driss is sitting as one of the interviewees sent by the state job department, not particularly looking for a job but just for a signature and a rejection so that he can get state unemployment money. Phillipe hires him for his careless, funny, non pity and don't-give-a-shit kind of attitude. The two characters are completely in contrast to each other but still the way they build a relationship between them is shown magnificently by the directors. Phillipe on one hand is a rich educated businessman with fine taste for art and music and Driss on the other hand is a marijuana smoking, fun loving, easy going and chilled out man who even likes getting massages from Chinese prostitutes. It is beautiful to see how the two characters grow on each other and gain from each others characteristics. It is a very simple and feel good movie with just the perfect dose of comedy which is sometimes slapstick and sometimes ironic. I don't remember when was the last time I laughed so much watching a movie which ended with filling so much warmth in my heart that I was speechless. I would definitely recommend it to everyone.

A similar comedy I remember I saw last time was this Turkish-German movie called Almanya - Willkommen in Deutschland which is based on an immigrant Turkish family settled in Germany after the war and the dynamics between the three or four generations within the same family.

I must confess that I have always had good experiences with people from African descent, something which my US settled aunt find tough to believe. I find them particularly witty, full of life and energy, very carefree attitude, quite religious, with a positive zeal for life. I remember a few years back when I as searching an apartment to share in Stuttgart for my internship, I could not find any. With the limited budget, no one was willing to share an apartment with a strange looking guy from India. I searched and searched and searched but without success. Finally, just one day before the joining date, I met a guy from Cameroon offering to share his apartment. I took it without thinking. His name was Valentine. How can you not like a person with that name :) Each evening when he was not working, we used to have dinner together. It was always a laugh riot listening to his stories and way he used to express them. I had a good 6 months stay in Stuttgart at his place. Maybe this was another reason why I could relate more with this film.