Mammuth

Strange and beautiful road movie, and for me that was best role of GD ever. It reminds me about Amelie with it's French beautiful romantic and absurd humor, while grainy filming, "real life" attitude, and Depardieu with long hair remind me of The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke.

If you can imagine how two of them would feel combined, I think you would get this movie as a result.

There was absolutely no weak acting here.

Recommended for people who liked movies like "Pierrot le fou", "Bernie", or anyone who wants to discover french humor - a bit dark, sad, cynical, but still romantic at the same time.

there are ways and ways to tell a story. Here the two talented directors tried to prove to everyone that everyone's worth watching. like many movies, this one, depending mainly on your mood at the precise time you "encounter" it, will either disgust you or mesmerize you. I sort of loved it, from the beginning till the very end. Pathetics scenes are meant to be pathetic, showing us all of our lives are meaningless and ridiculous from time to time. Though I'm not much into Adjani, Yolande Moreau's acting, for instance is astounding, and unique, almost moving in its "uselessness". The thing is you have to throw away all your prejudices against "people of no importance" before watching this, because if you don't, you will be indeed disappointed and/or upset about losing your time and your money. gave it 8/10, because of its originality, nasty yet tender humor and Yolande Moreau's lines.

Mammuth comedy movie has a very good idea, but unfortunately it cannot expand this idea well. A trip to the past is a return to oneself, and the result of this trip is to find a renewed passion for life. Gerard Depardieu is a powerful actor. The movie is trying to be realistic and the excessive use of camera on hand is for this reason, but the camera movements in camera on hand shots are sometimes not well designed. Although the film tries to have a realistic structure, the shots in which Mammuth remembers his girlfriend overshadows this realism. The film received attention at the Berlin Film Festival.

This movie is a road movie in the France of small people, done by an atypical guy on an atypical bike (would you figure that the antique Munch Mammuth that Gérard Depardieu is shown riding is priced around $100.000?)

As Depardieu is making his trip to the places where he used to live and work, so that he can get the paperwork he needs to retire, we meet a number of comic situations, that often reveal the absurdity of our modern world (see the scene where Yolande Moreau fights against an automated voice phone service). Miss Ming character also gives us some nice touches of craziness.

Besides the comic situations, there is a more serious tone. The movie shows us the rigidity of the retirement system, from which a number of people are excluded, as they are anyway excluded from the whole economical system. A few moments in the movie also make us feel how getting old can be a wrecking for these people.

So there is both fun and sensibility there, and Gérard Depardieu is good at conveying both. This is his best role for a great while and it proves that he stills has something to give.

Perhaps if you're a devoté of what used to be called art-house films this movie might not seem so different to you. Otherwise, it is likely to strike the average mover-goer accustomed to average movies as very strange indeed. Much if the dialogue is delivered in a very dead-pan style. Some of the cinematography, however, is really both very original and very beautiful. These are not introspective characters. They sometimes aggravate us because they don't think about their situation and are constantly astounded by what happens. This leaves them the victim of government bureaucracies that are simply too complicated for them to understand. You are unlikely to identify with these characters. Often you wonder whether to take them as mocking caricatures or sympathetic portraits. Still, the movie almost always held me, which is more than I can say for many more "normal" movies.