Ciao maschio

Marco Ferreri directed some of the most unusual films of the 1970s - from the castration love story "La Derniere Femme", to the gluttony fuelled orgy of "La Grande Bouffe". Bye Bye Monkey might not match those films for quality or shock value, but it most definitely surpasses them in the weirdness stakes.

Bye Bye Monkey is a rare exercise in cinematic existentialism that does not drown in its own pretence. In fact, the film's greatest achievement is that it somehow manages to be entertaining despite having a plot which basically involves Gerard Depardieu walking around with a monkey. There are, of course, detours from this central premise and they are just as perplexing. Ferreri offers a Roman wax museum subplot, feminist dancers interested in experiencing rape, a massive gorilla corpse/sculpture and a love scene between a young Depardieu and a then 65 year old Geraldine Fitzgerald. Did I mention that Gerard Depardieu incessantly blows a whistle throughout the film?

I'm really not sure what the film's deeper meaning is intended to be, assuming that it has one at all. Bye Bye Monkey contains so many ideas and passes comment on so many issues that I gave up trying to interpret them all. However, Ferreri's favourite theme of emasculation is unmissable in everything from the dancer rapists, to Luigi's sexual frustration and the birth registrar's comments on dressing Cornelius in girl's clothing. The film is never weighed down by its philosophy and there is just as much enjoyment to be had from the surreal imagery as from the film's ambiguous subtext.

Gerard Depardieu was doing his best work in the 1970s and he turns in another muscular performance as Lafayette. I can not imagine another major actor who would accept this role in the first place, let alone approach it with the conviction that Gerard does. Marcello Mastroianni is also great as Luigi, as is Geraldine Fitzgerald in her most controversial role. However, it is James Coco who almost manages to steal the show with his outrageously over the top performance as Mr Flaxman. As good as the actors are, this remains Ferreri's show and his direction is as stylish as ever.

Bye Bye Monkey is a real oddity of the 1970s. Ferreri was a truly unique director and this may be his most individual, if not most convincing, work.

What film involves a beach in New York City, apes and a very famous New York landmark? Yeah, well Planet of the Apes does, but I mean Ciao Maschio.

This is a pretty bad film, there is no story to explain, the relationships between the characters are sometimes puzzling, the occurrences are sometimes impossible and the people's reactions unreal. Then comes the acting, the very, very bad acting.

But if you love films set in New York City and just like a calm atmospheric and weird film set in parts of New York you don't often see then you can't miss this.

The entire film takes place among a few block radius in a residential neighborhood just a few blocks north of the World Trade Center. It seems to be shot in a hurry as many scenes could have used another take or two. I wonder if they had all the necessary permits of if it was, umm "guerilla" filmmaking. It seems like they may have shot it all on a few Sunday or Holiday mornings as you never see another soul walking the streets during any scenes.

But here is the most fascinating part. This was shot, I assume in 1977, and at the time they were building landfill or extending that part of Manhattan out into the East River to create a man-made neighborhood on which they would build expensive condos. But at this brief point in history it was a vast beach, it was all sand. It was blocked by a weak fence with a warning sign but they ignored it and several scenes, long scenes, take place on this yet -to-be-finished landfill area just under the Twin Towers. It is actually quite beautiful and I doubt another film exists that would show this. In fact I doubt you could even find an old newsreel type video on youtube that might show this.

For that reason alone i would recommend this.

an oddly desolate New York overrun by rats, Gerard Depardieu works at a Roman history wax museum, gets "raped" by a feminist performance art troupe, pals around with a sexually frustrated Marcello Mastroianni ("I have some kind of monster between my legs!"), seduces the elderly hostess of a dinner party in front of the guests, and discovers the corpse of King Kong on the beach, who is clutching an infant monkey that he then adopts. A stencil on Depardieu's wall asks "Why?!" and that's a good question. Although composed of several interesting elements (some of which recall Ferreri's earlier THE SEED OF MAN) it doesn't gel into any cohesive whole. The best I can do at putting it together is to say it's an absurdist treatise on the decline of civilization, but not all the pieces seem to fit. It's an exercise in non-sequitur, and that's not a form I enjoy very much unless it's done very light-heartedly. There are amusing moments but the overall tempo is too sluggish. Also, the performances aren't very good except for Depardieu and Mastroianni, and even they don't appear to understand what they're doing. Sometimes Ferreri's idiosyncrasies add up to something really exciting, but here it's a near miss.

This is not a real movie in terms of a story but rather a collection of impressions about the life of a lonely guy living somewhere in a future New York slum during an apocalyptic virus wave that caused the death of thousands of people. He's surviving by taking bizarre jobs for a living, and finally he's finding a small monkey as a buddy.

The whole atmosphere is disturbing and sinister, but the "story" is a bit lame sometimes. The photography is stunning and occasionally reminds of the famous apocalyptic paintings of Hieronimus Bosch to the shadowy impressions of Enrico de Chirico. A really disturbing, surreal French movie featuring a young Gerard Depardieu.

The premise quite catches one's attention, as well as the attachment of esteemed actors, not to mention the fact that the title was received well at Cannes. As the film first begins one is perhaps indirectly reminded of other creative oddball works, like 1973's 'La grande bouffe' or 1982 bizarrerie 'Liquid sky,' and one carries high hopes for what filmmaker Marco Ferreri, and/or co-writers Gérard Brach and Rafael Azcona, might do with the concept at large or with the setting. However, as the length draws on, the idiosyncratic scene writing increasingly seems to be part of not a wildly inventive narrative, or a presentation with something big and important to say, but a tapestry of incohesive randomness that goes nowhere in particular and says nothing substantive. There are many kernels of ideas scattered throughout, kernels that could have been latched upon to shape 'Bye bye monkey' (also known as 'Rêve de singe' or 'Ciao maschio') into something significant and entertaining. What it feels like, instead, is scene after scene of Christopher Walken's infamous few lines in Martin Brest's 2003 misfire 'Gigli' - quizzical, baffling, and nonsensical. The difference is that despite its outward appearance the latter scene actually does make sense in context, whereas so far as I can determine, there's ultimately not truly anything to be gleaned from this.

There is no actor herein who does not suffer from that perplexing tenor, and between young Frenchman Gérard Depardieu - well before he would be accused in real life of sexually assaulting many women - and Italian icon Marco Mastroianni in his supporting part, I don't know who bears more of the brunt of it. The dialogue fails just as surely as the scene writing to produce anything enduring and meaningful, and no few instances of nudity rather just raise a skeptical eyebrow. I suppose we could commend the cast for embracing the inanity and bringing it to fruition, though I don't know why we would, and the same goes for Ferreri with his direction. The highest compliments I think this is likely to deserve are for its production design, art direction, costume design, hair, and makeup; the harshest criticism definitely belongs to Ferreri, Brach, and Azcona as writers, primarily for the lack of any cogency or real, discernible purpose, but also for passing, unnecessary expression of regressive social values (e.g., here a homophobic slur, there a flummoxing line of toxic paternalism and gender enforcement). In no time 'Bye bye monkey' becomes a picture that we continue to watch only out a sense of commitment, for it bears no strength of its own to hold our attention or drive engagement. As far as I'm concerned these two hours are a waste for any given viewer, and all the time, energy, and resources that were devoted to the production would have been better off going elsewhere; it's well made by contemporary standards, but so what?

I guess I'm glad for those who get more out of this movie than I do. I just don't know how they manage to do it. I sat with no foreknowledge or expectations but anticipated enjoying it in some measure; instead it was so dull and trifling, squandering any possible potential, that it put me to sleep. After I awoke and continued watching, I think continuing to sleep would have been the better use of my time. Whatever it is you want out of this flick, may you find it, but in my opinion you should really just watch something else in the first place.