«The old furnaces»

Cinema Wednesdays - Jonas Follonier

Pierrot, Mimile and Antoine are three childhood friends now in their seventies, whose reunion takes place against the backdrop of Antoine's wife Lucette's funeral. The film is triggered by Antoine's discovery of a letter revealing a secret from the past that has made him angry. From his native Tarn, he sets off for Tuscany. His two acolytes, accompanied by Sophie, Antoine's six-months pregnant granddaughter, set off in pursuit to prevent him from committing a crime of passion... fifty years later!

The old furnaces by Christophe Duthuron is yet another example of the best that French comedy has to offer - not the theatrical troupe, of course, which also has some fine things to offer, but the cinematic genre. The cast goes a long way to explaining the success in theatres: Pierre Richard, whom we'd lost sight of for a while, Eddie Mitchell, much appreciated by the general public as an actor - perhaps even more than as a singer - and the lesser-known Roland Giraud. But the critic's task is to show how the film, on its own, is interesting, or uninteresting.

While we're on the subject, the beginning of the film is, in my opinion, a failure. The art of the beginning is important in a work of art that extends over time, as is the ending, which will be successful. Fortunately, the twenty-first second remedies this: we know we're going to laugh, a lot of laughs, in this comedy. There's no end to the wonders this genre has to offer. An example of hilarious dialogue: «What kind of music does he make? - I hope you don't know.» The way the funeral scene is shot, with all the hypocrisies that are intrinsic to it and the old village stories that will be crucial in the film, is representative of French irony.

Naturally, there's no comedy of this heritage without a dramatic, or at least moving, dimension: such is the case at one point in the film when the three buddies see each other as youngsters, running through the fields of their childhood. There's also the touching comedy of Henri Guybet's senile former boss. Other aspects of the film that are intended to be touching are less successful, such as the abundance of strings in the soundtrack. Eddie Mitchell's performance is also a little less convincing than expected, although he remains in his element.

As for photography, a real aesthetic quest emerges from the Old stoves, especially in the formal treatment of flashbacks or the characters« imaginations. A striking feature of the film's social message is the fine cause of the left, the real left, the old left, that of workers» rights, far removed from the rainbow and «bobo-linguistic» demands of today's socialists. Finally, it's the universality of this feature film that makes it worthy of its lineage: the relocation of a provincial industry, old stories from elementary school, the tragedy of life (Eddie Mitchell's magnificent occurrence: "every hour hurts, the last one kills", and that's why it's beautiful) and the request for forgiveness.

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

Photo credit: © JMH Distributions