12.11.2010

Here’s the story / Of a man named Pujol... Potiche is a social fable that, even if set in 1977, touches -ever so lightly, though- on the current political reality of France.

Critics like it for its social/political relevance and hate it for all the reasons I loved it. It is a pop culture/cinephile delight (or a Trivial Pursuit for old bejeweled bourgeoises, say some. Ouch.): Deneuve meets her old lover Depardieu (their younger-selves avatars taken from The Last Metro). The Pujol family owns an umbrella factory and the opening scene is Peau d’Âne forty years later (Am I too far off if I think of Ozon as a scathing Jacques Demy?). Deneuve and Depardieu do a little Saturday Night Fever dance. When the daughter first appears (with her feathered hair) the soundtrack is Charlie’s Angels theme song. The action takes place in the 70’s and it is filmed like a 70’s tv show; the sound and image editing, the framing, even the props: Catherine Deneuve cooks her way to an all prop-dinner like a primera actriz from a Mexican telenovela.


“Ozon is not always suitable for non-French”, French used to say circa 8 Femmes. Watching the movie I wondered if the French were going to get/care for all of the movie’s clins d’œil. Maybe Ozon will too catch the Mainstream French Filmaker Syndrome (like Tati and Demy before him) becoming the object of cultish veneration everywhere else.

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