Ridicule - Von der Lächerlichkeit des Scheins

Ridicule is a French film which takes place in 1783, a few years before Louis XVI lost the ability to wear a hat; where "...in this country, vices are without consequence, but ridicule can kill." The film is about the effect of wit and word play on people's lives and careers. Malicious, mannered and highly enjoyable. Charles Berling, Jean Rochefort, Bernard Giraudeau and Fanny Ardant are excellent. A man would be a fool not to want to bed Ardant, and even more a fool to trust her. The love affair between Berling and his deep-diving sweetheart is amusing and endearing.

The film is sumptuously mounted. The dialogue is so clever a knowledge of French might be in order, but the English subtitles do a superb job of conveying the witty, cruel, self-serving word play.

"Ridicule" confirms well a thing: Patrice Leconte is one of the most talented French film-makers that French cinema has known. His gift comes from the fact that ke knows how to find original and eye-catching subjects for his movies and he also knows how to make them fascinating (watch "mister Hire" or "the hairdresser's wife" to be aware of it).

Here, he chose to broach a make his movie around a feeling that men always dreaded: ridicule. The action takes place in 1780, in the reign of Louis XVI. A young noble (Charles Berling) intends to get a meeting with the king, in Versailles. Indeed, he'd like him to lend important sums of money so as to drain marshes infected by mosquitos. This action will enable to save hundreds of peasants. But what Berling doesn't know is that he's not the only one who wants to get a meeting with the king. Hundreds of nobles like him feel the same thing. Above all, according to an elderly noble (Jean Rochefort), when you're in the court of a king, you have to avoid the ridicule which consequences can be disastrous. Berling will learn it, will face it and will just avoid it.

You could compare the court of Louis XVI as a jungle where only the strong survive. The strong are those who are quick-witted and skillful-minded. Ridicule invades the weak and leads them to disgrace, even suicide. With this movie, Leconte's aim is at denouncing vanity and hypocrisy of courtiers in the court of the king who take advantage of their privileged situation.

An outstanding and precise film-making, a dazzling performance especially Jean Rochefort and some powerful cues ("now, you mustn't make a single mistake" said Rochefort to Berling when the last one's going to meet the king). Obviously, the movie doesn't lack ironical humor: when the king asks to a courtier: "I hope it's not a pun" and the courtier replies: "no, Sir, it's a play on words". Play on words and pun mean the same thing.

At the end, a brilliant movie rightly awarded in France where it won the Oscar for the Best movie in 1997

I have seen this film recently on video after having missed it at the cinema and on TV. I knew it would be all about cruelty of words and superficiality of elites. Indeed, this film is a true gem, very well played, sharp and quick. It tells the story of a young provincial nobleman discovering the Versailles Court as he tries to get funding for his project. What he finds will lead the nobility to its brutal end 6 years later: futility, self-conceit, disinterest to the people's problems, superficiality of relationships (all of which still pervade it modern French elite, to some respects as was evident from revelations of Mitterrand's shameful reign). Of course the political message is important. But equally if not more important -or pleasurable- are the dialogues. French can be so brutal, insidious, cruel, tortured, witty when used a propos that I'm not sure the non-French speakers could get the most of the dialogues. Certainly the absolutely brilliant rhymes contest would be somehow lost in English subtitles. A very good 9/10 for this movie, and a bit less if you don't get the dialogues.

I have to say that this film is certainly not for an audience with a predilection for sophomoric or low-brow "hu-mah". The action in this film is nearly entirely a matter of verbal cut and thrust and quick repartee. A period piece shot in pre-revolutionary France in the days of King Louis and Marie Antoinette, Ridicule portrays an era when wit could earn a passport into courtly favor, and one verbal faux pas could ruin a man's reputation and position in society. Charles Berling's performance as Ponceledon, the rustic nobleman trying to bring his petition to drain the disease-infested swamps of his region before the King of France, is in a word, superb... Fanny Ardant is also a well-cast Madame de Blayac, the dexterously duplicitous countess who appears disposed towards aiding Ponceledon in his suit. Ridicule is a genuinely delightful comedy. I recommend it highly even to those who do not speak French. My rating: 9/10.

This is a very very intelligent movie. From a historical point of view, it's perfect! It shows how cruel and vain the French noblesse was before the French Revolution of 1789, and why this country had a revolution! It's also a fantastic movie for the beauty of the French language. Actors are fabulous, with Berling, Rochefort and Ardant. For me, French cinema is always at it's peak when they're doing comedy of historical movies, like this one, or Beaumarchais l'insolent, Marquise, or Cyrano de Bergerac. By the way, I'd like to tell Thefan-2 of Detroit that the Ridicule of the title don't mean Ridiculous. In the Renaissance French language, it means Hard. And that's what is facing Berling, when he wants to get in touch the king to help the poor people of his land.