Abdel et la Comtesse

A subject which could have spawned a very funny comedy ,but the comic scenes are few and far between.

The lines are full of dirty words which do not suit a countess, and Charlotte De Turckheim 's performance is too vulgar to convince ;In real life,she does come from a noble protestant family ,which crowns it!One expects a true aristocrat , true to tradition of honor, snob, proud of her noble lineage , if one is to believe that this lady is anxious to keep her desirable château to continue with her "reign" over the yokels of her village .

Best performance comes from Mathieu Simonet ,the new heir (for in this still macho world ,women ,even though they are educated -the countess's daughter is a vet-cannot lay claim to the title of countess;Simonet is aristocratic,refined, tricky ("there's an easy way to become a countess,he says to her dispossessed cousin he woos ") ,modern and pragmatic :doesn't he want an open day event , a thing the countess doesn't want to hear of?what ?let the riffraff in?Besides,he's got property business plans ,which means turns the ancestors' property upside down: what will become of those poor squirrels?"

On the other hand Abdel is a character who gets in the way ; this part ,in spite of Amir El Kacem's efforts , is a millstone round the director's neck :bedridden half of the time , he makes the screenplay heavy and he seems only in it to secure a happy end .(Given the countess' s obsolete ideas, an ending which does not make sense at all).

A story from the old cinema, but it falls short of its goal.