Bienvenue au gîte

....it soon gets bogged down in the most unbearable clichés of the worst comedies "à la française": a "modern" long-haired liberal priest with a crude language ,the de rigueur gays -of course as the straight people see them-,the mayoress -poor Bulle Ogier!- and an interminable medieval fair which is nothing but filler .

And yet the beginning was rather funny:the last hours in Paris and the arrival at the country gite are colorful scenes ,and for a short while,I was beginning to think that "Bienvenue au gite" might renew the "return to nature" subject ,which was trendy in the post-68 era.But everything that follows is a waste of time.

1/ Take a Parisian couple, add olive oil with the Provence hot and dry greenery. 2/ Pretend you can make it look good and appetizing from the moment you chose the vegetables up to the very last line of the recipe. 3/ Did I forget something?

The theme, provided [Bienvenue au gîte] deserves one is 'Urbanites drop in the countryside.' 'Nature is the real thing but I am whom I am.' In this heavy general setting the 'auteur' adds supporting characters all around the couple instead of building a true couple. Thus we never see the evolution in their relationship. We wait for some funny things to succeed, and they're not many. And the greenery is nice; and some supporting characters are colorful but we simply do not care for the couple.

Of course there are some good ideas here and there. As for me there was less than a laugh every two reels and hardly anything touching in the whole hundred minutes. Anyway the whole thing is episodic, flat, with nothing to hang on except the characters of Peter and Angélique. Annie Grégorio and Michael Maloney show us something and THIS has something to do with motion pictures while their characters are no more elaborate than the rest of the cast.

Well, ideas don't make up for the lack of talent. You need to dump a thousand ideas before you keep one. Then another. Then you build a story. Then starts the hard work of fleshing up characters, hence flowing in dialog. Lubitsch? Who's that fella?

Is this film a comedy? Hardly. Is it a drama? Hardly. No sex in it. No nothing. So what is it? I watched it and liked it. Afterwards, the film lingered in my head (bad movies never linger like that!). After a while I felt that this movie, more than other movies, can be seen as an illustration of how to relate as a human being to new (unexpected) circumstances. In this film you can see two different basic attitudes towards "the new", towards life.

The first one (Caroline) is a closed one. You have your own norms and ideas, your own pace of living, your tendency to control, and, as an egocentric person, you try to force/impose this on the new situation (including the people who constitute the new situation). The dynamics which follow have a universal character. You basically stay on your own, tend to isolate yourself, tend to alienate your environment, tend to become very emotional. This way of living inhibits living in the now. You just miss life. Not able to connect, you become lonely and frustrated. In a way, you die. And then you go back to the place where most people have this orientation towards life. Well, many people will recognize themselves in this, isn't it?

The second one (Bertrand) is an open one. You see your better and more authentic self here. The one who will be happy in any situation. The one who is not afraid of his feelings. The one who stays true to himself, who is connected to himself and thereby is able to connect to others. The sensual human. The one who is in the now. You see how everything starts to blossom and flower.

It's almost a spiritual study, this movie. How to live life, to feel it!

After "find this out", I was curious about the writer/director. How old is he? Who is he? Well, the director, Claude Duty, was born in Tunis in 1946. For me, this is a key. The pace of life there in Tunesia is much slower than it is in for instance Paris. I wouldn't be surprised if Claude has distilled his own life experience to the dense and sensual wisdom displayed in this film. Of course in his long life as a Bertrand he has met many Carolines. It feels so obvious!

Of course, all this is what I see in the movie. Kind of projection. But if you choose to watch it from this perspective, Claude Duty is the living master of wisdom. Another title could have been: "the secret of happiness". I choose to give this grand little movie a 10 out of 10. Can't wait to see it again.