Friday, March 23, 2012

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. 

11 comments:

Rohit Singh Jain said...

Lovely read. Loved it!

sibi said...

We carry a lot of prejudices in life. May be based on what we have heard from the media or from movies. But, once we come across personally, we would realize that we were wrong. Good article. Keep blogging!

Vetirmagal said...

Sorry Orchestra..,
I am sorry you said , 'one or two bloggers who read this post..'

Why , why are your blogs not submitted to IndiVine? I was eager , to promote your posts , in my network but , was sad to note ,not one post is linked.

Hope you will share your wonderful posts with Indivine.

The movie you were describing reminded me of Scent of a women where two people totally opposite relate so well.

Globalization has brought about sharing so much with the world. I wish we pay more attention to world cinema, instead of waiting for our Indian pseudo intelligent film makers to copy them form the original.:-)

Thanks for mentioning this film. I hope to catch it somewhere.

My daughter too had a lot of good friends from Afro american community, since she was in south. Of course they are Americans and are easy to make friends.

If you find the comment too preachy, you can ignore :-)

the.orchestra.of.life said...

Thanks Rohit and Sibi !

And Vetrimagal, I always admire the wisdom in your comments so I can never ignore them :)
Actually, I was never in this number game. A few bloggers I look up to never joined any other sites. It was only after a lot of persuasion from a friend of mine, I enrolled at indiblogger 2 days back. So, I am not very familiar with indivine etc :)
But, I will try and keep your tip in mind :)

Alka Gurha said...

Nicely narrated..Valentine is a name for a guy? I like him already..ha,ha.

Carpe Diem! said...

Wow, it seems awesome! :) I need to watch this film soon! So many years of learning and teaching French and why have I never seen this one? Would be great to screen in one of my classes too. Thanks! :)

Also, I found people of African descent really cool too, when I was living in England too. Maybe it's something to do with US/ Europe thing? Or, a lot of people from the Carribeans are often confused with Africans. And I don't want to offend anyone here but I've had some quite rude experiences with a bunch of Jamaicans. :/ So, maybe that prejudice exists there as well?

the.orchestra.of.life said...

Yes Alka, I am not kidding. That was the name of the guy :) Actually, I also did not believed it initially but when I saw letters coming in with that name, I had to believe :)

Carpe Diem, you are quite right there about the distinction between Carribean and African people!
Since you are a french teacher maybe I can recommend another movie, La journée de la jupe. Some others which I liked and reviewed on my blog are ... Le scaphandre et le papillon, Les petits mouchoirs, Incendies.
Would be great if you can recommend some as well :)

Carpe Diem! said...

Ooh, thanks! :)

Recommendations... well, there are the famous Paris Je t'aime and Amelie Poulain (Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain), which are also personal favourites. For some slapstick comedy, there are Les Visiteurs and Le Diner de Cons. I tend to stick to comedy as I can hold on to the students' attention that way. :P But there are also La Vie en Rose and Au bout de souffle, which are other genres. :)

the.orchestra.of.life said...

Thanks CD, a couple of them I have seen. Will check out the other ones as well :)

Dr Mandeep Khanuja said...

ok i am not spooky or stalky or anything but if i like something i HAVE to comment :)
so its good that u r sharing some very good cinema reviews here ! thanks fr that and i wud make it a point to watch them.
and having said dat i am finally closing this blog window before u block me frm here :)

the.orchestra.of.life said...

c'mon ... comments are always welcome :) and there is no blocking on this site ... of course as long as you are not selling me any drugs :P