Tag Archives: French cinema

Rififi (1955)

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Fact 1: In the 1956 Hindi film CID, there was a song (composed by OP Nayyar, lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri) which went Jaata kahaan hai deewaane… kuchh tere dil mein fiffi, kuchh mere dil mein fiffi. The censor board pounced on the song, accusing that ‘fiffi’ word of being obscene. Sultanpuri, Nayyar, and the director Raj Khosla insisted that it was a meaningless word, just put in as a filler to help marry the tune to the lyrics. The censor board refused to change its stance, and the song remained out of the film. In the 2015 film Bombay Velvet, the song was resurrected and sung by Suman Sridhar.

Fact 2: In the 1955 French film (note the year: 1955, a year before CID) Rififi, there’s the title song, sung (and performed onscreen too) by Magali Noël. Though the French word rififi (which is military slang) can be roughly translated as ‘rough and tumble’, referring mostly to the macho strutting of toughs of the like of this film’s main characters, the song’s lyrics give it a differently nuanced spin. Innuendo, through and through.

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La Grande Vadrouille (1966)

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Which literally translates as ‘The Great Ramble’, but the English title of this hilarious French film is Don’t Look Now—We’re Being Shot At.

And, that English title is explained within the first couple of minutes of the film itself. This is in the middle of World War II, somewhere over Germany.  An RAF plane, part of an operation to bomb this area, is flying along, commanded by Sir Reginald (Terry-Thomas), along with his co-pilots Pete Cunningham (Claudio Brook) and Alan MacIntosh (Mike Marshall). The operation is code-named Tea for Two, after the Irving Caesar/Vincent Youmans song.

The plane encounters some heavy anti-aircraft fire and sustains some damages. The worst damage of all seems to be to their map, which has a great big hole burnt through the middle of it, as a result of which Sir Reginald & Co. lose their way…

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Le Grand Restaurant (1966)

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Or, in English, The Restaurant. Though, personally, I think the ‘grand’ of the original French title suits this film better, because the very grandness and importance of Septime—the eponymous ‘grand (or great) restaurant’—is what makes it the site of a very high-profile abduction…

I watched this film because I found it in a list of ‘food films’ and got very excited at the thought of an old food film. As it happened, there’s not that much food in Le Grand Restaurant, after all. Despite that, it’s a film worth watching.

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La Femme du Boulanger (1938)

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Or, in English, The Baker’s Wife.

Recently, across a period of about three months, I’ve had to watch a slew of films from across the world (for an article I needed to research). While making my way through films from the US, Brazil, Spain, France, Mexico, Japan, China, Taiwan, Vietnam… and of course, closer home, Hindi cinema—it came home to me rather forcibly just how much of a gap there often is (and has been, for many years) between Hollywood and much of the rest of the world.

The Hays Code, applied to Hollywood productions between 1930 and 1968, imposed restrictions on the scenes shown—the sex, the violence, etc—as well as the language, the themes, the messages and more. But even later, after the Hays Code was no longer applicable, I’ve realized how much more tame Hollywood is when compared to other cinema (for instance, from France, Spain, or Mexico, to name just three countries, recently-watched films of which were far removed from what Hollywood would make). Hollywood’s risqué is often tame for Europe. (And Indian cinema, across regions, seems to faithfully follow Hollywood in this matter, though it’s much tamer even than Hollywood).

Anyway, on to one of the films that highlighted this point for me. La Femme du Boulanger is a French film about a middle-aged baker who sets up a bakery and patisserie in a sleepy village in the French countryside, along with his pretty wife to help him out—and within a couple of days, the wife has run off with a local buck. In Hollywood, this would have been probably treated quite seriously; in France, it becomes more a comedy than anything else. All anybody is really worried about is that their baker has gone off his desire to bake, so they’re not getting bread any more…

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Fanfan la Tulipe (1952)

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I’ve been on a swashbuckler spree these past few weeks, what with a couple of Hindi films and then the Bengali film, Jhinder Bondi. Before I drift off into another genre, I decided I may as well finally watch a film that has been in my to-watch pile for several years now: Fanfan la Tulipe, or Fanfan the Tulip, a swashbuckler with plenty of comedy and romance thrown in. This, originally made by director Christian-Jaque in 1952, was remade in 2003, this time being directed by Gérard Krawczyk.

Fanfan la Tulipe starts off funnily with a dryly witty narration about war, which plays out against a background visual of French soldiers at war. It is the reign of Louis XV (Marcel Herrand). The Seven Years’ War is in progress, and with more men having been killed than are left alive, Louis (who loses hats, not heads, and is therefore able to swiftly get a new hat every time) announces that more Frenchmen must enlist.

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Les Quatre Cents Coups (1959)

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This is the 400th post on this blog.

And, what with my penchant for honouring precedents, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to watch a film that has that number—400—in its title. Les Quatre Cents Coups (known in English as The Four Hundred Blows, though the actual translation would be closer to ‘the four hundred dirty tricks’) was directed by François Truffaut, one of the most prominent pioneers of French New Wave cinema. It was Truffaut’s first full-length feature film, a work that not only won much critical acclaim, but also led Truffaut to make a series of sequels featuring the same lead character…

…who is, in Les Quatre Cents Coups, the twelve-year old Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud).

Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups
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Plein Soleil (1960)

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I’ve spent the past month—and more—focussing solely on Indian cinema. Time for a change, I thought.
This, therefore. Director René Clément’s Plein Soleil (literally, ‘Full Sun’, but known as Purple Noon) is a French adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley, and was the first major film of Alain Delon, who really does dominate the film. In more ways than one.

Alain Delon in Plein Soleil

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Don Camillo (1952)

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I am not a party animal. I do not drink. I have two left feet. Loud music makes my head throb. I find it difficult to keep awake after 11 PM. So when friends ask, “What’re you doing on New Year’s Eve?” I say, “Watching a movie at home.”
And what better way to say goodbye to a bad year with a film that you hope will be a sign of things to come? A movie that embodies all the joy you want for the dawning year?

Don Camillo (Le Petit Monde du Don Camillo in French – it was a Franco-Italian production) is the story of a little town in the Po Valley in Italy. Even though it is named for its lead character, the Catholic priest of the town, the film is not just about the hot-headed Don Camillo and his arch-enemy, the communist Mayor Peppone, but about the little town itself.


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Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953)

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Beth, commenting upon Arsenic and Old Lace, said she didn’t like films that she labelled `wackadoodle’ (what a delightfully apt word: each syllable says it all!): all that frantic running around and the ceaseless activity was just too exhausting for the viewer.
This review, therefore, even though I saw the film before Beth posted that comment, is dedicated to Beth. Because Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr Hulot’s Holiday) is a film sure to appeal to anyone who likes their humour less fast-paced.

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot - poster

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