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France 2014
Directed by
Marc Fitoussi
98 minutes
Rated M

Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
3 stars

Folies Bergere

Synopsis: Married couple, Brigitte (Isabelle Huppert) and Xavier (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), are well-to-do Normandy cattle breeders with two grown-up children who have left home.  Brigitte loves Xavier and Xavier loves Brigitte but whereas he is content with being a farmer, Brigitte feels the need for adventure. So one day she tells him a little lie and heads to Paris for a good time.

The title of this film, both refers to the legendary Parisian Belle Époque cabaret of the same name, an infamous home of fleshy delights, and the French words for “folly” and “shepherdess”. It cleverly brings together the elements of this genial romantic comedy for the middle-aged.  As Xavier explains at a dinner party he first fell in love with Brigitte at agricultural college when she told their class that she wanted to be a shepherdess. Xavier is attached to that charmingly olde worlde romantic image and for him Brigitte remains his “petite bergère” although it is a moniker by which she feels constrained.  As much as their relationship is a comfortable one, Brigitte has developed eczema  which her dermatologist explains is due to stress. Blissfully content with his rustic routine. Xavier simply cannot understand what there is to be stressed about.

Brigitte’s folly is to go to Paris in pursuit of a hot young guy that she meets at a neighbour’s party. Her imagined fling doesn’t work out because she can’t overcome the ridiculousness of the situation but, completely out of the blue she meets a charming middle-aged Danish peridontist (Michael Nyqvist) also a visitor to Paris and also lonely in his marriage, and they have brief, refreshing dalliance.

Marc Fitoussi’s film is one of those neat packages that we regularly see from France that play heavily upon the romanticized touristic image of Paris and its rural regions, fashioning a story that inevitably has its protagonists gliding down the Seine past Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower seen at sunset (and/or sunrise) and in this case visiting the Gare D’Orsay to cop an eyeful of some mid-19th century realist painting by Millet or some such artist.

"Glide" is the operative word as that is exactly what the film does over its well-honed, somewhat sentimental narrative. Smooth as butter and pretty as a picture, but for all that not without insight, Folies Bergère is designed to please and, with Huppert and Darroussin both typically engaging in the leads, unless you are in a particularly churlish mood, this is exactly what it does. Just don't expect more of it than that.


 

 

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