Le mouton enragé

LOVE AT THE TOP--the utterly wrongheaded American title for the superb French film "Le Mouton Enrage" (which means, I think, The Rabid Sheep)-- is such an original movie, the fact that it dates back to 1974 seems all the more astounding. This film was far ahead of its time; even by today's highest standards, it accomplishes things that seem rich and new. Filmed by the hugely underrated director Michel Deville, it rather defies description in the way it combines social critique, comedy, mystery, love, sex and satire into one wholly original mix--leaving for the end a major but subtle surprise to render all that has gone before suddenly sad and more understandable. The cast is splendid, ditto the writing and theme. But it's Deville's delicious tone, keeping you constantly off-balance but enrapt, that pushes this "lost" film to a very high level indeed. (The written interview with the director on the "Special Features" section of the DVD is definitely worth reading if you have the time.)

Michel Deville was of the same generation as Truffaut, Chabrol and Godard, but resembles them not at all. He seems to belong to an older generation, like Carne and Renoir, but much more eroticized. The story is that of mentor and student (sort of Svengali and Trilby, but with two men). The homosexual undercurrent of the story should not be too hard to see for most viewers. Trintignant is the shy 'sheep' of the title, his overbearing mentor, who has emotional problems owing to his club foot, is Cassel, one of his most impressive performances.

I don't know who is really the female lead--is it Birkin or Schneider? They both have very important roles. Florinda Bolkan, so great in Investigation of a Citizen..., has another memorable role here. Mary Marquet, almost 80 at the time, has a superb cameo as the very rich woman Trintignant has to romance.

Nicolas Mallet is a failure. A teller in a bank, everyone walks all over him. Then his friend, a writer who's books no one likes, has a plan to change his life. Our hero tells his boss he is quitting. He intends to spend the rest of his life making a great deal of money and sleeping with a great many women. And he manages to do just that.

If it were not for the amount of death (murder/suicide/natural causes) in the film, this would be a farce. There are numerous jabs at marriage, politics, journalism and...life.

Jean-Louis Trintignant is a likable amoral rogue. Romy Schneider is at her most appealing. Definitely worth a look.

Michel Deville quietly left us and this world a few weeks ago, and his disappearance would have gone unnoticed, for me at least, if some television stations had not marked the sad event by programming some of his films. A contemporary and colleague of the formidable New Wave generation, Deville was an interesting and quite prolific director. Somewhat more conservatory in style than his more famous colleagues, he was bolder in his choice of themes, making (and sometimes writing) films about unusual relationships between men and women, set in social environments where corruption and ambiguity are rule. He was also considered an excellent 'director of actors', so that the names of most of the famous French actresses and actors of the eras in which he created appear on the credits of his films. 'Le Mouton enragé' (the English distribution title is 'Love at the Top'), released in 1974, is one such example. I chose to see the film for its formidable cast, and I discovered an interesting movie, a story of social ascension through unusual means that could not have been brought to the screen in this way today, and which, if ever a 'remake' is made, will look completely different.

Nicolas Mallet is a bank clerk dressed in gray suits and wearing bland ties. Shy and uninteresting, he allows himself to be manipulated by his friend Claude Fabre, a failed writer who lives off private French grammar lessons given in bistros. A kind of puppet manipulated into deeds and adventures far different from his psychological profile. At Claude's prompting, Nicolas enters into relationships with very different women, then with politicians, leaves his stable job to become an intermediary in politics (today we would call him a lobbyist) and in dubious dealings at an increasingly higher levels. The fun thing is that the scheme succeeds beyond all expectations. The marionette proves to be a talented lover, the women he conquers are gorgeous and the politicians he supports are elected to Parliament. For the manipulator Claude the only reward seems to be the detailed accounts that Nicolas gives about his adventures. Any pyramid business, however, risks eventually collapsing.

In the story taken from Roger Blondel's novel, the separation between the roles of men and women in relationships is one that would not be accepted in today's movies. Nicolas, behind his shyness, is almost a predator seducer and the women who meet him seem to easily become his victims. But is that really how things are? The three women that Nicolas (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) meets are very different from each other. Marie-Paule (Jane Birkin at the peak of her youth and beauty) may be a prostitute, but she is sincerely in love. Roberte (Romy Schneider in one of her most sensual roles) is looking for an escape from a boring marriage and knows her interests well, even if they fall outside the social norms. Finally, Flora (Florinda Bolkan) manages her relationships in a calculated way and does not lend herself to the role of victim at all. Behind all these social intrigues played with the tools of love is Claude, played by Jean-Pierre Cassel, who today we almost automatically call 'the father of ...', but who was himself a formidable actor. Seeing him in this film we understand where the son inherited his talent but also the look of the man who knows much more than he says. 'Le Mouton enragé' is a film that must be seen without prejudice and especially not through the lens of the cinematic moralism of 2023. It is not Michel Deville's best film, and precisely because of this it is proof that he was a director whose name must neither be forgotten nor ignored.

It is just a beautiful film. Not exactly in ordinary manner who you expect - sure the cast is more than impressive, the dialogues are just fair, the satire works more than seductive, the dream , animating many from us , reminding a sort of Vicomte de Valmont and pure intelectual voyerism are admirable good points- but for situations, cliches reinvented in wise manner, for the magnificent end and for references to so many familiar situations from literature and cinema.

An ordinary man, working in a bank, after two meetings with a young girl becomes the subject of a sort of social experiment of his friend.

This is all, in fact, and you become part of each step of the way , with dramatic to terrible consequences of a functionary beginning a different life in profound sense.

In short, just a gem.