Un, deux, trois, soleil

I have only seen 3 Bertrand Blier movies, but this one is easily my favorite of the 3. BUFFET FROID, starring Gerard Depardieu, was the first I saw -- and the fact that it was basically plot less and full of absurdist humor made it instantly a favored flick. I more recently saw Blier's Oscar-winning GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS but thought it was a little too conventional and strained next to the more flat-out freewheeling BUFFET. About 15 years after that pair of movies comes this one, which marries the sensibilities of the other two perfectly. Like HANDKERCHIEFS, it actually has a story, but like BUFFET, it doesn't bother with real-world logic, good taste, or linear chronology in telling that story. SOLEIL is sort of a movie about coming-of-age in the projects, sort of a movie about sexual psychology, and sort of a cut-and-pasted collage of unusual moments. The magical thing is that the damn thing winds up more moving than it probably would have if it was a straightforward tearjerker about hard living. Of course, Blier can't be credited completely for this, as his actors are wonderful, especially Anouk Grinberg as Victorine, our perpetually childish heroine, and Marcello Mastroianni as her charming perpetually drunk papa. An under-seen gem.

If you know Bertrand Blier, and you like Bertrand Blier, you will like this movie. When we like Bertrand Blier's work, it means we u derstand his work, a d we like him whatever. For the others, be prepared because there are many unconventional moments in the movie. Be curious, give it a chance, try it out!

The early life of a girl in multiracial poor suburbs of Marseilles. An original vision of the tough life of a girl between 12 and 25, facing a harsh initiation to adulthood. Probably to show that she had no real childhood between an irresponsible mother, a drunk father (Marcello Mastroiani at his best) and gangs of ruthless boys, the girl at different ages (about 12, 15, 18, 20 and 25) is played by Anouk Grinberg. She does a good job but can't avoid a few stereotypes. In addition, the various moments of her life are interlaced in a kind of stream of consciousness and dead people that she loved reappear, as they still live in her memory. A fairly dark picture where occasional rays of sun shine even more brightly. Great music by Khaled.

Memory and longing can make of our lives a continuous present tense in which those we've lost have dinner with us, in which we can call them from the grave whenever we wish, in which we can kill them as often as we like. And if we are the pretty, hyperactive daughter of demented (Italian? Spanish?) mother and pastis-drowned father, living in a nightmare suburban project in Marseilles among the walking driftwood and the detritus of loving humanity, in which crime is a career and rape a rite of passage, we are seven, seventeen, twenty-seven in the same moment while the hybrid sounds of Euro/Algerian/Camerounian music, chewing, cursing, laughing, fighting, sexing, loving, accompany us perpetually as in the old melodrama, except that it is so alive, funny, moving, devastating and rescuing all at once that we are enthralled and left with the happy/sad feeling of a life lived. A movie to be lived in and remembered with fondness.

This is a one of the most underrated movies of all time. It's worth viewing if only for the excellent performance of Marcello Mastroianni. It tells the story of Victorine, a girl living in a suburb of a big city. The movie has a surreal undertone and does not explain everything so the viewer can use their own imagination to fill in the gaps. A special mention for the suberb music by Khaled.