Les patates

"Les patates" from Claude Autant-Lara is a curious little movie, blending comedy and drama in a historical context.

The story takes place during World War 2, in Occupied France. Clovis (Pierre Perret, a very famous French comedic singer in his convincing screen debut) is trying desperately to cultivate potatoes, despite the restrictions decided by the Nazis, and the jealousy of his neighborhood. Soon, his little garden becomes an obsession, which leads to marital crisis, and beyond...

The film is clearly not as moving and ambitious as Autant-Lara previous work (such as his masterpiece, "La traversée de Paris") but there are many funny parts, and good performances all along.

Overall, a decent satire of Occupied France, with a good balance between comedy and drama.

The sixties were a hard time from all the great directors who worked before the N. V . Autant-Lara's work in this era can be classified into two categories : the commissioned movies ("vive Henri IV Vive l'amour" ,"le comte de Monte Cristo " "le magot de Josepha") and the ones he was anxious to make ,dealing with taboo subjects : A conscientious objector in "tu ne tueras point" (1963) and abortion ("journal (et nouveau ) "journal d'une femme en blanc" (1965-66); so the great rebellious director of "douce" " le diable au corps" and "l'auberge rouge" was still present .

Like his precedent effort "le franciscain de Bourges " (1968) , "les patates ' takes place during the occupation ; comic singer Pierre Perret (who was also capable of deeply moving anti-racist songs as "Lily ") plays the lead and his jovial face fits the atmosphere like a glove .

This is a farce which put off many people at the time , but hindsight shows that his next-to-last movie was his swan song (as for the last ,"Gloria" ,if you can't say something nice...); in occupied France , people living in the country were not as starving as in Paris (as depicted in "la traversée de Paris" ) ,but in the forbidden zone, here les Ardennes , people were not sure to have something to eat when their supply run out .

Hence the necessity to get potatoes (check the title) ,which ,as the comedy turns to drama , becomes the hero's obsession ; Autant-Lara and his screenwriter Jean Aurenche do not pass over in silence the collaborators who stuff themselves with fine food ,but they also expose the selfishness of the hero , his property instinct hated by his fellow men ; all in all ,he's responsible for the final tragedy .