«Un homme pressé», the art of the masterpiece

Cinema Wednesdays - Jonas Follonier

In Hervé Mimran's new film, Fabrice Luchini takes on the role of an overworked businessman, always on the move, between business meetings and conferences, a man on the run, like an automobile, a field in which he has made a career following the death of his wife. In short, he's a man in a hurry. One day, he suffers a stroke. His life changes: language and memory problems force him to relearn to speak with a speech therapist. It's meeting this woman, Jeanne (Leïla Bekhti), that will help him not only to regain control of his speech, but also to recognize his past mistakes and make up for lost time.

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A film about (re)getting to know each other

It is above all this component that makes this film a masterpiece: starting from the pretext of a singular situation, it tells us a great deal about themes that are more than important, they are fundamental. Not to mention the formal dimension of’A man in a hurry, which we'll look at below, its thematic scope is impressive. Who better than Fabrice Luchini to embody the drama of losing one's language, for speech is everything. Forget the wacky Luchini of the TV set, or add what characterizes him even more: a real sense of the tragic. There are few French films in which an actor is capable of moving audiences so much through the quality of his performance.

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Knowledge is at the heart of this work: to know is to know, but knowledge can be lost. Hence the need for an enterprise of reknowledge, which takes on every possible meaning in this deeply moving film. Recognize words - know them again, find them -, recognize your illness - face it head-on, recognize that you failed to love your daughter - confess your faults. This painful journey takes’A man in a hurry increasingly takes on the character of an initiation story, culminating in the highly symbolic final scene, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

What a laugh!

Once past the thematic dimension, it would be demeaning not to mention the comic power of this film, since it is indeed a dramatic comedy. In this genre, French cinema excels and shines the world over. So much for the fashionable bobos parroting «French cinema sucks». Let's be a little objective: what a laugh we have in front of the screen! Right from the start (what a start!), when the cook, a highly successful secondary character, sings off-key Papaoutai by Stromae, a ploukissime occupation that she will reproduce several times in the film, with The Unloved by Claude François (what a burlesque!).

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And the main character's language problems, what an inexhaustible source of family laughter! «I've got to go and see the psychopath» (instead of «the psychologist»), «bitch» instead of «gallop», «cimer» instead of «thank you» and, to top it all off as part of the comedy of repetition, «bonjour» instead of «au revoir» and «au revoir» instead of «bonjour». Of course, it's impossible to consider this joking plot without its deeper counterpart, hence the reflection on the importance of words: «Il faut que vous m'aimiez», says Alain to Jeanne, instead of (or not) «Il faut que vous m'aidiez».

Formal quality and human dimension

Finally, the film achieves a tour de force in combining undeniable formal quality with a very human dimension. There's nothing Hollywood The omnipresent music isn't original, but it's magnificent and unifying; the camera's rhythm simply follows that of the character; Alain's daughter isn't a knockout of beauty, yet there's something about her. In the end, this artistic simplicity (simplicity is not easiness) serves a film that is much more than what it is: a film about absence, mourning, forgiveness and (re)getting to know one another.

In our December issue, our interview with director Hervé Mimran. Click here to order an issue.

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Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

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