We follow a formula, but when it
comes to stereotypes, the French take the gateau (cake) , writes Raymond Gill.
LAST week that ageing bad boy of American film, Quentin
Tarantino, upset the Italians - not a difficult thing to do - when he lambasted
their cinema as "depressing".
"Recent [Italian]
films I've seen are all the same. They talk about boys growing up, or girls
growing up, or couples having a crisis, or vacations of the mentally
impaired," he whined, sending the Italians into a capriciosa of outrage -
which is a lot more entertaining than some of their movies lately.
This is not something Tarantino could have whined about Australian movies,
since no middle-class couples in crisis or people on holiday have ever been
featured on our screens - unless there's a drug angle or indigenous sub-plot to
add a bit of true-grit. Australian films can be reduced to crude stereotypes,
too, since as a nation of cinematic story-tellers, we seem to be terrified of
characters that, say, drive Volvos or order swordfish carpaccio.
All Oz films revolve around two themes. One theme is all about
quirky, low-life but loveable alcoholics who decide to take on the big end of
town by opening a takeaway store after narrowly winning a lawn bowls
tournament. The other theme is about quirky, low-life but loveable heroin
addicts who decide to take on the big end of town by opening a takeaway store
after narrowly winning a High Court battle.
All Australian films are a variation on these themes. Take out
the drugs and add some transsexuals and you have Priscilla. Take out the transsexuals and add some
fat chicks and you have Muriel's
Wedding. Keep a few fat chicks, dress them in muslin, take out the
transsexuals and you have Picnic
at Hanging Rock. Just as all chic US films in the 1950s were set on
the Riviera with Grace Kelly, all chic Australian films in the 1990s are set in
or near Yarraville with Bill Hunter.
How many of us consider the nationality of a film when deciding
on that night's cultural repast at Video-Ezy? If you want a mindless car chase
and the click click click of typewritten locations: "The Pentagon, Eleven
hundred hours", or a portrait of f----d suburbia, or an uplifting story of
a handicapped basketball player making it to the finals, you go for the Yanks. If you want
something witty but depressing set in a housing-estate you go for the Brits. And if you
feel like a compelling examination of female madness or incest on a country
estate - which let's face it we so often do after a hard week - we'll head to
the Scandi section
faster than you can say Festen.
But
it is French cinema
that is most at home with cultural stereotyping since all French films are
about overly attractive wives married to angst-ridden, handsome, middle-aged
men with mistresses pretending they're
gay in a hilarious workplace sub-plot and end up with all their friends having
nervous breakdowns at a dinner party in a nice apartment.
This is what
makes French films great: the reliability that when you set out for the Rivoli or the Nova you know what you are about to see is
going to be light, frothy and feature lots of extremely attractive women with
scarves thrown creatively around their necks, who do not chew gum, and are
never seen picking up children in SUVs.
Casting is simple
in French films since all male leads feature Gerard Dippydoo,
Phillippe Noiret (until he
died) and Daniel Auteuil (looking amusingly confused) as they try to deal with
all the attractive women in their lives.
Auteuil upset the carte de pommes somewhat by appearing in a serious award-winning political
movie, Hidden, last year. But just in case you thought the French had a broader
repertoire of story telling, let me remind you that this film was really an
Austrian film masquerading as French, since it was part of the oeuvre of
Michael Hanneke, a man who could not make a souffle-light laugh-fest in a million years, even if he was
shooting in the 16th arrondissement.
No, the French
take the gateau when it comes to the perfect date movie and not only because of
the content but also the length. French directors still know how to make a
90-minute flick.
Unlike the Americans, whose
average film-length is now getting close to three hours.
This not only impedes your enjoyment by forcing you to calculate the babysitter's fee at the critical juncture but it means that a
date movie has actually turned into a relationship movie since three hours in a
darkened room implies emotional commitment. Which is
something else you will never see in a French movie.