Le nom des gens

Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin) is a reserved member of the Office of Epizootic Diseases. He has an interview on the radio. Left-wing opinionated Baya Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier) is taking calls for the station. She bursts in on the interview to complain. Martin's Jewish mother hid from the Nazis and changed her name. She was glad to marry Arthur's French father and take his name. Arthur isn't too happy with his name either which is the name of a popular cooker. Baya's father is Algerian. His family members were killed by the military. Baya's mother is a hippie from an upper class French family. She was happy to lose her name and gain an Arab name. Arthur's family represses their haunted history while Baya's family is boisterous and political. She was sexually molested by a neighbor as a child and is very sexually liberated as an adult. On the other hand, he's very repressed. She uses sex to convert 'fascists' to her politics. Despite being a socialist, he catches her eye and they become an odd pairing as she continues to try to convert 'fascists' from all sides.

Normally, I have difficulties with French comedies. It may be the cultural barrier or it may simply be reading the subtitles. There is something distancing about having to read a joke rather than have it performed. Sara Forestier is able to break through with her expressiveness. She is enchanting, sexy and magnetic. Jacques Gamblin also has a great deal of charm. His expressions are the perfect foil for her. They work brilliantly together. There are real big laughs in this and that is rare for me with foreign language verbal jokes. Physical humor is without borders but written jokes have a harder time crossing those borders. It's also a great romance. His support for her father is pure romanticism. This is a great unconventional rom-com.

You will never change your political opponents' minds by arguing with them, but what if you have sex with them? Baya Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier) lives her life by this mantra. She is an ultra-leftwing idealist who sleeps with right wing fascists to convert them politically. She even keeps a scrapbook of her successful conversions; most of them are now some sort of shepherd. While listening to bird-flu expert Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin) in a radio station one day, Baya bursts through the studio's door and argues with him on the air that if you can't trust ducks, then what is this world coming to? This is a very amusing argument and also makes for a humorous lead character introduction.

Any other film, such as an American one, would construct Arthur as a rock solid conservative and make it Baya's quest to convert him. Ah, but this is an intelligent French film. Arthur is a socialist and while not nearly as leftwing as Baya, he proudly states he voted for Lionel Jospin. A warning: if you do not know who Lionel Jospin is, you will miss an amazing and funny scene. The Names of Love takes a sharp turn from where the film was leading the audience. It is not a romantic comedy, well, not all the way. Much screen time is devoted to Baya and Arthur's respective families and to what extent they identify themselves as French citizens.

Baya's father is from Algeria and vividly remembers the French Army shooting many of his relatives in the war. Her mother is a hippie who thinks everything non-French is fascinating which is why she marries a man with the last name Benmahmoud. Arthur's folks at first appear to be the exact opposite of the first couple and are shown boring and set in their specific way of life. However, there is a lingering secret past with Arthur's mother which is not necessarily hidden from view, but takes on more of a role as the film progresses.

The Names of Love starts out at a fast clip with both leading characters taking their turns talking directly into the camera about their youths and where they imagine themselves on the political spectrum. After a half hour or so, this starts to taper off and a more somber and contemplative mood takes over what was almost a comedic farce. Arthur and Baya are shown interacting with each other's unfamiliar cultures and testing their respective boundaries. The script is whip smart and expects a lot from its audience, especially from its non-French audience. I give a high mark to how intelligent and probing this film is, but be wary of the shift from light comedy to more serious introspection.

I must have watched a French comedy and put the titles of all the films previewed on my Netflix list, because they keep coming. Bienvenue! This 2010 film from France is the latest—a pleasant farce directed by Michel Leclerc and written by him and Baya Kasmi. It won three César Awards in 2011, including for best writing. The story is about a young woman who uses sex as a weapon to persuade conservative politicians—men whom she considers "right-wing" in general—to embrace more liberal attitudes. From this comes some satirical moments, too, touching on the impermanence of supposed firmly held beliefs and the pitfalls of stereotyping ethnic and religious groups based simply on how they look or what their names are. Half-Algerian, the young woman's name is Baya Benmahmoud,and she says, "no one in France has that name." But she tackles one person too many when she confronts Arthur Martin—"15,207 people in France have the same name," he tells us—a middle-aged scientist who does necropsies on dead birds, in order to detect possible human illnesses. Why are you scaring people? she demands to know at their first confrontational meeting. The free spirit and the buttoned-up scientist are, of course, destined to fall for each other. The filmmakers show us how the two protagonists do not escape their childhoods, and we see them as children, as children commenting on their adult selves, and the fireworks when their polar opposite families, alas, meet. In his New York Times review, Stephen Holden says the movie "has the tone and structure of early-to-middle Woody Allen,but infused with a dose of Gallic identity politics." Sara Forestier is charming as the irrepressible extrovert Baya (she also snagged a César), and Jacques Gamblin is a persuasive match. A fun movie when you just want to be happily entertained (note: nudity)

It is the ultimate "opposites attract" love story. Arthur Martin is a perfectly ordinary (15207 other men in France share his name) shy, conservative late-middle aged single man working for the Government. He was raised by boring scientist technophiles who have consistently invested in great ideas that all turn out to be flops.

Baya Benmahmoud is a one of a kind (She is the only person in France named Baya Benmahmoud) young, beautiful, intelligent but scattered brained super-liberal activist raised by her hippy mother and illegal immigrant Algerian father. Her mission in life is to sleep with conservative "fascists" in order to turn them to the proper liberal ideal.

Baya finds Artur and launches her "make love not war" mission. She follows her proved method turning his world up-side-down. But this time, perhaps Baya has finally met her match. Everything changes for Baya when Arthur performs a kindness for her father that turns Baya's world up-side-down.

"If you can't trust the ducks, that is a bad sign."

Imagine your second name is Leclerc, which is also that of a famous hypermarket chain. Now imagine you have a friend who writes scripts whose first name is Baya, only 26 other people in France have in common with you. Nobody would spare you the question, «Leclerc, ... like the hypermarket?» while your friend couldn't escape «Baya, where does it originate from? Brazil?» whereas her roots are North African. Why not take these two peculiarities as a starting point for a romantic comedy that would deal with questions that matter to you: emigration, identity, the duty to remember, family secrets, taboos, politics?

Michel Leclerc thus becomes Arthur Martin, an Avian Flu expert, whose name immediately calls to mind a well known French cooker brand. And Baya will be Bahia Benmahmoud, an extrovert girl who makes a point of sleeping with as many right-wingers as possible to win them over to the leftist cause. And on they are for a very original, very deep film which, by trying to unite two such dissimilar people, successfully spans the history of France, from the 1930's until today . And a very funny one too (the two most irrepressible scenes being the catastrophic dinner with the in-laws and the crazy cameo of former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin). The direction is particularly inspired, creative and unconventional (the characters who address the camera, Jacques Boudet playing a student and a young soldier whereas he is in his seventies because Arthur can't imagine him young, Arthur's dialog with his dead grandparents). «Le nom des gens» has less to do with a standard French comedy than with such brilliant oddities as «Toto le Héros», «Crazy» or «Le premier jour du reste de ma vie», also with Jacques Gamblin, who is perfect here as the dull biologist slowly opening himself to real life. In the role of his wild, passionate but insecure guide on his way to love and life, Sara Forestier gives her best performance since «L'Esquive». Also to be noted are Zinedine Soualem as Bahia's sweet Algerian- born father, Carole Franck as his energetic militant wife, Jacques Boudet and Michèle Moretti as Arthur's parents. And of course Lionel Jospin, who displays a great sense of humor in his only scene. If you like inventive movies that make you both smile and think over, this one is for you.