Les portes de la gloire

I went to see this movie at the cinema, in France, when it came out.

I really didn't like Benoit Poelvoord's movies but it read the cinema festival and it was cheap so when my friends proposed to watch it, I decided I'd go too... I didn't expect much but it didn't even reach the levels of my low expectations... It's the only movie they I paid for and still left the theater room mid-movie.

I was 19 years old at the time and I didn't have money so for me to leave something for which I paid, you can imagine how bored I felt with that movie!

I'm just reviewing it now because I was discussing with friends what movie we hated at the cinema and I remembered it....

The actor who played the main character (the new salesman) is pretty good! There s only actually two good jokes in this movie, the scenario is as bad as simple! I think this movie is for the ultimate fan of Benoît Poelvoorde (C est arrive pres de chez vous, his best film for the moment)!

I just watched "les portes de la gloire" on DVD (no special need to see it in a theatre, this is not the big picture on wonderful sets !). I actualy give it a 10/10, that maybe doesn't mean the same for me than for others : it means first that I entered the movie, it means it was worth watching, it means it was not stupid (or stupid enough to make think)... It means it is a real movie. "Les portes de la gloire" is about a few salesman (we say "VRP" in france, I don't know the name in english : a saleseman "on the road"). They sell books about we-don't-realy-know-what, something like an encyclopedia. These men force unemployed people (for instance) to buy useless books. It is not a realy good job. They all are a little stupid, of course. Well, what else can I say ? The characters work fine, there is a lot of funny situations, and there is no "happy end" : nobody gets rich suddenly or start another job, the men stay what they are. The real good point here is how much we can believe it is not caricature, but the real world. Salesman movies could become a "genre" with stuff like this movie or "comment réussir quand on est con et pleurnichard" (Michel Audiard). Poelvorde is, as always, brilliant.

I wonder why Michel Duchaussoy who used to work with such directors as Claude Chabrol and Alain Jessua has agreed to take part in this vulgar comedy.The real funny moments are few and far between ,and however ,the subject (the salesmen trying to send their lousy books to naive people) was ideal -one can only dream of what a Billy Wilder could have done with it.And the excerpts from "bridge on the river Kwai" do not bring anything at all except that David Lean was great. Nothing is here.