Primo, Prima

This popular French comedy deservedly received a lot of international acclaim and awards on its original release and still pleases when watched today almost 40 years later; apart from the Cesars and the Golden Globes, the film received 3 Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Film (which it lost to Ivory Coast's BLACK AND WHITE IN COLOR – which I also caught up with just now), Best Actress (Marie-Christine Barrault losing out to NETWORK's Faye Dunaway) and Best Original Screenplay (again won by NETWORK). Interestingly enough, in both the Actress and Screenplay categories, there were two foreign nominees apiece: Barrault and Liv Ullman in Ingmar Bergman's FACE TO FACE and, for Screenplay, Lina Wertmuller's SEVEN BEAUTIES and, incidentally, both directors made the cut among the final 5 nominees for Best Direction!

Barrault and her female co-star Marie-France Pisier (a Cesar winner herself here and, for my money, more deserving of an Oscar nod than the latter) are the only familiar names in a sympathetic cast; even director Tacchella seems to have been a one-hit wonder. Bafflingly, COUSIN COUSINE had been 'announced' as an upcoming Criterion title since the earliest days of DVD (in fact, the copy I watched culled from a US TV screening sports the tell-tale "Janus Film" header before the film's opening credits) but this release never came to pass! For what it is worth, this is one of the earliest examples of a Gallic success being revamped for Hollywood consumption, when it was remade by Joel Schumacher as COUSINS (1989) with Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini and Sean Young.

In any case, the plot line is simple enough: an extended family is reunited for two weddings and a funeral (anticipating the popular 1994 British farce FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL by 20 years!) and a series of infidelities come to the fore between two particular couples. Barrault's chronically womanizing husband (Guy Marchand) had been cheating on her with (among many others) the vulnerable Pisier, whose own restless spouse (Victor Lanoux) starts an initially secretly platonic but subsequently openly passionate affair with Barrault. There are several memorably delightful episodes which add to the charm of the film: during the wedding reception of Barrault's mother, the groom proposes to sing but when vetoed, proceeds to indulge in "mooning" (baring his buttocks in public); when Marchand decides after the opening wedding ceremony to mend his philandering ways, he is shown running from one flame to the next to end their relationship...ultimately being thrown off a bus by the burly female driver!; at the second marriage, Marchand again keeps getting into fisticuffs with the bridegroom's father, a former business partner who had defrauded him, etc. The whole is set to a jaunty musical accompaniment courtesy of yet another obscure element, one Gerard Anfosso.

French cinema is perhaps the only cinema in the world where a man can cheat on a stunning woman like Marie-France Pisier and it looks fairly "normal" and believable. "Cousin, Cousine" does not break much new ground thematically, but it does have plenty of charm and wit, as well as a wonderful cast (especially the two leads, Marie-Christine Barrault and Victor Lanoux). It is also pointed in its observations about male hypocrisy and double-standards, probably the contribution of female co-screenwriter Daniele Thompson. Nominated for several Oscars, this dramedy belongs in the same period of popular French films as "La Cage Aux Folles", although it is considerably more low-key. *** out of 4.

Cousin, Cousine directed by Jean Charles Tacchella was probably the first French movie I ever watched, at least in French with English subtitles. I was in my first year of college French at Indiana University and this movie was suggested by my teacher, a very enthusiastic grad student and mentor to all of his students. At that time the Midwest was my birthright and I had rarely traveled outside its familiar confines. I knew that I wanted to get away from where I had lived almost my entire life up until then, but I didn't know how to do it or know where to go. I was studying French mostly because it was a required part of an undergraduate degree. I suppose that I just saw it as another course, like economics or history. After watching this movie at an off-campus art house movie theater, I couldn't help but think that the French were very different from the people I knew. At that time, as far as I was concerned, "different" was the same as "good." I immediately developed an overly-romantic view of France that I hold to this day. Cousin, Cousine also gave me an overly-romantic view of love that I have maintained to this day.

I just watched this movie again recently, a film that was made in 1975 yet holds up extremely well, both as a timeless work of art and as something capable of speaking directly to me. In some ways I think that I haven't changed a single bit over the course of what has been my adult life. I still think this movie is just about the sexiest thing ever put on film, a story about two people who become best friends before consciously and deliberately deciding to be lovers.

I don't even know where to begin as far as my praise for this beautiful film. I love everything about it, even the music remains wonderfully whimsical—a lot of movie scores from the 70s are woefully dated. Cousin, Cousine has soured me on a generation of American films that don't have the slightest clue about how to portray ordinary people. The central characters are a handsome couple but not movie star perfect. They haven't been air-brushed, surgically enhanced, and stair-mastered to within an inch of their lives. All of the characters in this movie have ordinary (if not dumb) jobs. Hollywood's idea of a normal person's job is an advertising executive, and forget about accurately portraying all of the other details of middle class life. I think it was this movie that started my prejudice for books and movies about ordinary people, people I can recognize from my own very ordinary life.

If you haven't seen Cousin, Cousine I think you should give it a look, if you can find it. It should only take about the first 15 minutes or so to turn you into a Francophile.

I saw this in high school when it first came out.

It is very charming and sweet.

It was one of the first foreign languages I saw with subtitles. Since then I have been a strong follower of foreign films.

It is interesting that there are some strongly negative responses in the other comments, that such a gentle sweet film can register such strong responses.

I look at it as a bit of a fantasy ... that it is not there to really ask us to work out the nitty gritty of what happens to children or the other relationships. It sorta says ... how would you be in this situation? Anyway .. a very nice foreign film.

Pleasant romantic comedy about French social mores with Barrault and Lanoux starring as cousins - by marriage - who first become friends who eventually fall in love. They finally have an affair, flaunting it beautifully to their entire family. Some early development of farce, but not taken far enough, although there is a wonderful funeral sequence where everyone seems preoccupied with other things, rather than a deceased member of the family. (Pascal incessantly looking at his watch; the children assuming the funeral is another party.)Great performances from Barrault and Lanoux highlight the fun. Barrault and the film were Oscar nominated in 1975.