Inutile d'envoyer photo

Somain, Rosult, Valenciennes - names mentioned or seen on railway stations - they are all there and can be found on Michelin maps for that part of Northern Fance few tourists know about. But then equally unknown to most cineasts is this remarkable little film made for TV in 1977 by Alain Dhouailly. For a long time it was not listed on this database so I would like to think that my messages about its existence have put this right even if the title is not quite correct. Dhouailly called his film "Inutile Envoyer Photo" which is the phrase that would appear in a small-ad in a French magazine rather than including the grammatically correct "d'" which is less idiomatic. But no matter, IMDb has at last included a minor but rather wonderful film for which I offer a few comments in the hope that others may get to know of it. Although deeply rooted in a rather dreary, muddy agricultural landscape in a season of grey skies the topography is given lesser importance than Bruno Dumont's studies of the non-tourist North. In concentrating on the characters and everyday events within a small community Dhouailly's film is much stronger and more memorable. A middle aged bachelor farmer lives with his widowed mother who has suddenly woken up to the fact that her son will be without a woman when she is carted off to the cemetery. Basically the film is a comedy about the machinations of this wily old girl and the resistance of the son to her whims. If this was all the film was about it would still be pure delight but there is so much more to "Inutile Envoyer Photo". The director places his simple tale of country folk in a strong social context. Farming in this part of France in the late '70's is a struggle. When the dairy middlemen insist that the farmers install tanks to facilitate milk collection there are cashflow problems to be overcome. A neighbouring farmer nicknamed "Red flag" takes a communist stance that others are rather too proud to follow. Other neighbours, a man and wife with a poultry farm, are faced with a real struggle when their son who has long been their main helper ups and leaves home. Even the cunning old mother who places a lonely hearts ad in a magazine for her son cannot disguise her joy when the first respondent is a woman from a farm with many more hectares of land than can be imagined in their area. Problems arise for her when the writer of the second letter, the one the son actually bites on, is a girl from a modest town background. The final part of the film follows a Sunday afternoon visit of the woman with her young teenaged illegitimate son to the farm. It signals the promise of a "feel good" happy outcome in keeping with the reality of the situation, charming but not in the least sentimental. I tend to watch "Inutile" once every two or three years. It may not be among the greatest works of French cinema but it is one of the select few that I would probably take to my desert island.