L'été en pente douce (1987) from ICMS |
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L'été en pente douce ("Summer in a Soft Slope," as the film's title would
translate into English) is a sweet French movie set in a village in the
southern countryside. Basically there are three main characters: Fane (short
for Stéphane; Jean-Pierre Bacri), his mentally handicapped brother Maurice
(Jacques Villeret) and Lilas (Pauline Lafont). Fane first lives on his own
in an apartment in a town. He obtains Lilas from his woman-bashing neighbor
in exchange for a rabbit he stole from the supermarket where he works.
When the brothers' mother dies, Fane leaves the town and takes Lilas along to
the village where he was born and moves in with Maurice in what was once their
parents' house. He makes the move to prevent Maurice from being sent to an
institution. That is not at all to the liking of their neighbors, two brothers
who each own a garage on either side of the house. They had hoped to buy the
house so they could turn their two garages into one big establishment.
Lilas is a free-spirited woman who likes to flaunt what the Lord has given her,
and likes to look like Marilyn Monroe. In such a small village she is
immediately branded as a whore and is never accepted by the community. No one
seems to notice that she is not a threat to their lifestyle in any way, since she only
seems interested in Fane, and she desperately wants children. Well, she wants
Maurice too, to be honest, but that's where she draws the line.
The dramatic conflicts hinge on whether the villagers will succeed in driving Lilas out of town,
whether our threesome will turn out to be
closer than they ever could imagine, and whether the garage owners will obtain the house.
All in all, it is a quiet and nice little film, at times dragging its feet a bit,
but never enough to force a grab for the fast forward button. It never seems too
serious or tense because all the action seems to be set in an imaginary world where no one is
the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. Therefore it never becomes hard to
watch, since you know that everything is to be taken with a grain of salt.
Hats off to the DP, for the lighting is simply beautiful. The actors did a more than competent job, with Jacques Villeret exceeding
them all in the role of the mentally challenged Maurice. You can even see
Claude Chabrol in a bit part as the local priest. Gérard Krawczyk directed and
co-wrote. He is the guy who would later spawn the 3 popular Taxi films in
Europe, which even caused a remake in the US starring Queen Latifah.
The female star,
Pauline Lafont, died under tragic
circumstances in the summer of 1988, only a year after making this film. She was hiking completely on her own in
some remote part of southern France. When she was on a trail where
practically no human being ever passes, she had a nasty fall, slid off the
track and broke a leg. Unable to get back to civilization (and with no cell
phones back then), she died from starvation and her body was not found
by the gendarmerie until weeks
later.
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