Lundi matin

This just popped up on BBC 4, a digital station in the UK and the review tempted me. Had no really idea what it was all about but was fascinated throughout. The French know how to let a movie take its course without heavy editing and cutting. Very little dialogue yet you sink straight into the rut and routine of life in a tiny French village; and then the contrast of the romance of Venice. The characters are well defined, and I loved the way the family children looked after the grandparents, while the husband - the central character - seemed to live just for his cigarettes. The realisation that working life is much the same anywhere sent him home where he's received as if he'd never been gone! Anyone who's seen "Etre & Avoir" will feel right at home with this.

This is a funny, quirky comedy. It is a meditation on work, its rewards and frustrations. A welder in a large, repellent factory gives in to his original ambition of being a painter, and takes off for Venice.

There's a lot of oddball behavior. The story is not terrifically linear, and it's not clear what the main character has learned at the end of his voyage. But you do get to spend time with some charming eccentrics in offbeat situations. And afterward you can puzzle out exactly why the characters behaved the way they did.

It's abominable that this film was never seen in the US. Too many good international movies simply don't make it to our side of the ocean. We can hope that the medium of DVD will improve matters, but this little gem of a picture for one fell right through the cracks.

This movie tells the story of factory worker living somewhere in the French countryside. He has a wife and two kids who do not really love him, so one day he goes for a trip to Italy where he meets some buddies and drinks a lot. At the end he is coming back to his village. Thats about it, the story is sometimes interesting to follow as the characters are real, but it is also boring at times. Absolutely no movie for the typical blockbuster audience.

The film's main character is fed up with his dreary life, that's why he decides to give up everything, his wife, kids and his job for a few weeks away during which he'll be able to smoke and drink to forget his condition and finds himself again.

He claims his right for smoking after such a long time of deprivation. Smoking becomes an act of rebellion and numerous are the characters who act that way. Quite funny. The whole film is a comedy as most of the cast is singular and absolutely ludicrous.

But what could have been a nice film becomes more or less wasted by the director unability to give substance to his characters whom he forgets without any reason. What happens to the main protagonist's wife and kids for almost an hour is just a mystery. Frustrating and needless as they first appeared as leading parts.

And the direction is so primary and limited!

Why does that film last two hour is another mystery as it finally brings us nothing upsetting, except a few really funny moments.

A quirky, amusing little film about a French factory worker attempting to get away from it all. The factory scenes at the beginning definitely show a strong Jacques Tati influence and the rest of the film is very much a French version of a Mike Leigh film. Like a lot of French films, plot is not particularly important, but the characters and the atmosphere just wash over you.

My favourite characters were the cigarette smoking, sports car driving grandmother and the fat old man in the wheelchair, M. Albert. The scene where his carer pushed him down the hill in his wheelchair was hilarious! If you like gentle, atmospheric foreign films that don't really 'go' anywhere, then this one is for you.