Je vous trouve très beau:
from reception to representation
Ioana Mohor-Ivan
Je vous trouve très beau
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Producer: Jean- Louis Livi
Director: Isabelle Mergault
Writer: Isabelle Mergault
Production company: Gaumont & France 2
Cinéma
Cast: Michel Blanc, Medeea Marinescu
Release Date:
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11 January 2006 (France)
18 January 2006 (Belgium)
27 April 2006 (Italy)
14 June 2006 (USA)
15 June 2006 (Israel)
23 September 2006 (Serbia)
6 December 2006 (Romania)
8 February 2007 (Germany)
21 September 2007 (South Korea)
4 April 2008 (Mexico)
Awards:
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2007 César Best First Work (Isabelle Mergault)
2007 “Love is Folly” International Film Festival,
Bulgaria – Best Actor (Michel Blanc)
Plot
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A bitter-sweet romance that focuses on the
relationship between Aymé (a widowed middleaged French farmer who seeks a new wife to
help him with work on the farm) and Elena (the
young, beautiful but poor Romanian girl who
would do anything to help her 6-year old
daughter escape the misery in which they live).
The comic arises out of the various (cultural,
ethnic, gender, generational) clashes between
the two main characters.
Reception: The Outsider’s View
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“Je vous trouve tres beau” was the sensation of the
French box office in 2006, earning over 20 million
Euros.
It, correspondingly, received mostly laudatory reviews
from both French as well as other international film
critics and cinema goers:
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“Director Mergault adopts a light touch here, delicately
charting the subtly hilarious relationship between Aymé and
Elena. Proudly old fashioned in script and execution, and
boasting an unpretentious charm, “Je vous trouve tres beau”
sparkles with wit and is a handsomely rewarding cinema
experience.” (Alliance Francaise French Film Festival,
Australia, 2007)
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Allocine.com: Message Board
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“Loved the movie! I chose to see it as I wished for a light romantic comedy. I
received much more. Not a "funny" comedy but a "chamber" movie with two
chamber players, gentle, touching and heart-warming. I loved every character's
portrayal, including Ciufu the dog. Coming out of the cinema, I saw smiling faces and
overheard men commenting, in surprise, that they did enjoy the movie. The
matching of an older -not exactly handsome- man with a younger, vivacious woman,
reminded
me
of
two
other
movies
(that
quite
differ):
1. "Alexandre Le bienheureux",1967,(Philippe Noiret v.Marlene Jobert)- (Hilarious!)
2. "As good as it gets" (Jack Nicholson v. Helen Hunt)- (saw it twice and still find the
chemistry
unconvincing).
I shall definitely add this movie to my DVD collection.” (reponseb - 04/12/2007)
IMDb: Message Board
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“This is a film that I think someone from up there inspired, every inch of the way,
from the story, to the direction and, most of all, to the cast. It's a great mystery for
me how can anyone not adore this gem of a film about the birth of love. I thought a
lot about it, and the more I think about it, it seems to me the film is a very soursweet meditation on today's world, where nothing is simple, compassion and love are
mingled into one big feeling, a comment on the tragedy of human life. It is very
much a film of this beginning of the new millennium, and yet it reminded me, I don't
know how and why, of another sweet and sad story, that of Isihiguro's Never let me
go. They are both, at very different levels, part of the same big thing. We are all here
for just a tiny moment, let's try and make the most of it.” (zazoo, Fri Dec 7 2007
06:54:20)
Reception: The Insider’s View
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Nevertheless, within a Romanian context, the film
received mixed responses both from film critics and
cinema goers:
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“A simple and touching love-story … which enchanted the French
and made the French press eulogize the talent of Medeea
Marinescu. […] A very good passport for Romania.” (Stefan
Dobroiu, Cinemagia, December 2006) (my emphasis)
“An unpretentious movie which also lacks depth. Playing upon
the motif of the poor but young and hard-working woman who
conquers the heart of the grumpy landlord across today’s
European map, the director only manages to pile up a series of
stereotypes, without ever turning them upside-down in order to
prove thus that they are false.” (Iulia Blaga, “Behind the Tail of
the European Cow”, România Liberă, December 2006) (my
emphasis)
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IMDb message board:
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“I hadn't expect to like this movie. It deals with things from my country I
desperately wanted to escape from - lack of money, desperation, the small
price a woman can ask for herself. And I hadn't really liked a Romanian
movie eversince I was a child and I was watching silly communist movies.
But this movie had good credentials and people close to me had enjoyed it,
so when I had the chance I watched it, first with prejudiced disgust, then
with interest and at the end with emotion. It is a lovely movie, about not so
lovely people that in the end turn out to be just fabulous. It is the first
movie about ugly Romania that I actually enjoyed watching. I am grateful
for that.” (biddo77, 3 december 2007)
“I watched this film today on HBO and it pissed me off! That narrowminded farmer played by Michel Blanc spoke with despise about a country
he barely knew. And what a humiliation for all those Romanians involved in
it... Medeea who can usually play well, (after all she is at the National
Theatre in Bucharest), turned herself into a desperate, naive girl, (kind of a
simpleton), with a primitive accent when speaking in French! While I can
understand the French writer for such an arrogant and stereotypical work, I
can`t understand at all how come nobody in the Romanian team of this
film did anything in order to set the things better.” (corina_m, Tue Jul 24
2007 11:14:13)
This completely insults Romania!
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“So as a Romanian woman, I should feel offended by the main plot,
but it's a known fact that (some, if not few) girls in my country
indeed would subject to almost anything to go abroad and escape
poverty. It was a small, almost insignificant detail in the movie that
totally "pissed me off", if you will.
The complete undervaluation of our economy! It was
impossible for Elena to be a billionaire with merely 15.000 euros
even when our national currency wasn't relatively strong in
comparison with the euro, as it is at the moment (aprox. 3.13 lei\1
euro).
The prices for houses and apartments in Bucharest are known
to be similar to those in Manhattan! You couldn't purchase a square
metre of land in Bucharest with 15.000 euros, let alone open a
dance school AND buy a house. And the estimate rent for a space
as big as that required for a dance school, and which meets the
necessary conditions is aprox. 4000 euros\month. The "there, it's a
lot of money for us line" made me sick. Indeed, salaries are small,
but prices are sky-high.
If you want a poor country and city where people actually do
think 15.000 euros is SUCH a big deal, don't pick Romania and
definitely not Bucharest.” (diadeedyi, Tue Jul 24 2007 09:18:02)
A conflict of type and stereotype?
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“In fictions, social types and stereotypes can be
recognized as distinct by the different ways in
which they can be used. This is most clearly
seen in relation to plot. Social types can figure in
almost any kind of plot (e.g. as hero, as villain,
as helper, as light relief, etc), whereas
stereotypes always carry within their very
representation an implicit narrative.” (Richard
Dyer, “The Role of Stereotypes”, The Matter of
Images, New York: Routledge, 1993, p. 15)
Social Types
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Social type: “a human prototype-a sociological summary of the
typical characteristics of a particular group or of a category of
human beings usually recognized and typed by the public and often
granted a nickname. This group or category may be a secondary
group, a community, a profession, a subculture, a status group, a
class or a generation unit that is characterized by its look (physical,
fashionable or both), life style and philosophy, pattern of interaction
(particularly linguistic), attitudes and certain psychological traits.”
(Oz Almog, “The Problem of Social Type: A Review”, Electronic
Journal of Sociology, 1998)
Sources for the emergence of social types:
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occupational role type: characterized by total internalization of a
particular occupational role, so that the role is enacted not only in the
context of the role-partner interaction but also in general, including
private, life.
psychological type: the inborn traits and tendencies that form a typical
personality.
cultural/subcultural: the dominant behavior is typical of the individual's
culture or subculture.
mythological: formed by the interaction of fiction and reality.
Je Vous Trouve Tres … Typical
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The box-office success of the film can be accounted for
in terms of it being perceived as a typical romantic
comedy involving the development of a relationship
between a man and a woman, with the plot line
following "boy-gets-girl", "boy-loses-girl", "boy gets girl
back again" sequence, where much of the humour lies in
the social interactions and sexual tensions between the
pair.
As such, the film foregrounds ‘social types’ along the
following paradigms:
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occupational: rural / urban
psychological: introvert / extrovert; pragmatic / dreamer; morose /
light- hearted
cultural: West / East
mythological: Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast.
gender: male / female
Stereotype
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[If] social-types are as realistic as most concepts used in everyday life may
be expected to be; they are needed for effective participation in modern
secondary society, and are characteristically applied within the system to
promote insightful relations rather than to hold people at a distance or
portray outside groups in an inaccurate way” [… ] "a stereotype is often, if
not generally, viewed as an inaccurate, rigid popular concept playing an
important part in prejudice. It is not rational and interferes with insight. . . .
" (E. O. Klapp, "Social Types: Process and Structure." American Sociological
Review 23: 675)
“A distinction needs to be made between stereotypes of the Other and
images of the Other. The latter may be defined as the representation of a
cultural reality, while the former has to be considered as a pejorative,
reductive, monosemic, essentialist and discriminatory representation of the
Other. The stereotype of the Other involves an elementary conception of
the dichotomy between the ‘in-group’ and the ‘out-group’.” (Christiane
Villain-Gandossi, “The Genesis of Stereotypes in the Interplay of Identity
and Otherness in North-South Relations”, Hermes, No. 30/2007, p. 23)
Je vous trouve tres … reductive
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The mixed Romanian reception of the film may be accounted for in terms
of its being perceived to recycle stereotypical representations of national
identity.
Romanian Stereotypes or Images?
Corruption
Dracula country
Poverty
Nadia Comaneci
Backwardness
Beautiful women
Orphanages
Latin temperament
Prostitutes
Ceausescu’s Palace
Stray dogs
Archaic countryside
Gypsies
Artistically gifted
Illegal immigrants
Hardworking
Criminality
Tolerant
Je vous trouve … slightly
subversive
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Though Mergault’s film makes recourse to both type and stereotype, it also
manages to subvert and demonstrate the conventional nature of images by
relocating (at times) perceived national/ethnic/racial/cultural oppositions:
West / East dichotomies
Je vous trouve tres beau
France
Romania
France
Romania
Self
Other
Self
Other
Centre
Periphery
Centre
Periphery
Masculine
Feminine
Masculine
Feminine
Urban
Rural
Rural
Urban
Progress
Immobility
Immobility
Progress
Harmony
Dissonance
Dissonance
Harmony
In-group
Out-group
In-group
In-group
From text to context
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The timing of the film points to the expected entrance of
Romania into the European Union, with France being one
of her main advocates for this integration.
It comes immediately after the 2005 identity crises
which the French society faced when young Muslim
people of immigrant origin, who felt they were
discriminated against and marginalised in high-rise
suburban ghettos, expressed themselves in the “worst
violence for 40 years”.
The two factors may have impinged upon the French
popular consciousness by replacing the traditional “WestEast” context for the identification/exclusion of the
“Other” with the “North-South” one.
Hence the positive portrayal of the young female Eastern
migrant whose “Otherness” does not threaten the
community cohesion of the “in-group”.