Tremendous stuff! As if Victor Hugo returned to write a WWI revenge novel. Albert Dupontel, who mostly acts, but also writes/directs (he just won a fistful of Césars for ADIEU LES CONS/’20), overdoes the action & CGI in the opening scenes, a purposefully pointless battle two days before Armistice, setting up our trio of protagonists: war-addicted officer Laurent Lafitte; older soldier Dupontel, nearly buried alive; young Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, a gifted artist (a la Egon Schiele), severely injured saving him. Nursed by Dupontel, Biscayart is suicidal upon seeing himself (he’s lost the lower third of his face), but lives to seek revenge against Lafitte, now working for Biscayart’s much hated rich, industrialist father and engaged to his sister. Yikes! Meanwhile, our soldier brothers work up a huge con with hefty commissions for designing War Memorials they have no plans to build. All part of one of those big, circular storylines that tie everything together in Romantic 19th Century fashion. (Grotesque characters very popular at the time: Hugo’s Quasimodo & Triboulet/Rigoletto, though Biscayart is closer to Gwynplaine of THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.*) Lots of sentiment & laughs along with the devious plotting, organized for maximum clarity by Dupontel who also stops working in overdrive after the battle prologue with an ultra-lux production on this up-to-date old-fashioned story. At its best, timing & farce staging Blake Edwards worthy. And look fast to see him in a Buster Keaton style ‘pork pie’ hat. Not much of Buster visible, but nice to see the salute. Are his other films this good?
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Paul Leni’s great late silent, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS/’28 with Conrad Veidt. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/man-who-laughs-1928.html
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