All for one!
Band of Buddies Night
PostED ON 11.07.2016
It's a whole galaxy, which deserves an original and detailed breakdown: the "buddies film," a subgenre of the "ensemble film." It might be fun to assign further subsets: the "Where are they now?" nostalgic friends flick… We All Loved Each Other So Much by Ettore Scola remains the ultimate example. Then there are movies where the friends do things that we, the audience, could do: go hiking in Corsica, vacation at Club Med or Cap Ferret, ski in Val d'Isere... And other films, where the guys are harder to imitate: improvising being postmodern bandits, killing Nazi generals or helping a Mexican village defend itself (Okay, so maybe The Dirty Dozen and The Magnificent Seven take "buddies films" to a certain extreme...).
"Band of buddies," Lumière's all-nighter, on Saturday, October 15 from 9pm till dawn at the Halle Tony Garnier, brings us back to the origins of the genre, more or less covering the (non-exhaustive) subcategories mentioned earlier. Colorful Odyssey (Act 1) takes place among a group of "crook-mates." In L'aventure c'est l'aventure (1972), a classic Lelouch, a triplet of thugs (Ventura, Brel, Denner) and their trusty sidekicks (Charles Gérard, Aldo Maccione) seek to profit (in dollars if possible) from the "isms" of the time. Since political corruption is more lucrative than bank heists, they decide to make a "career change" to serve the South American or African revolutions... Epic hilarity ensues in classic scenes- like the five guys practicing their "strut" to pick up girls at the beach- tips to review before going on holiday!
Colorful Odyssey (Act 2): Buddies… in down jackets? Here comes French Fried Vacation 2, by Patrice Leconte (1980). We've seen the movie over and over and again, but on the big screen with a big crowd, the laughs are sure to explode off the charts. Everyone knows the lines and gags by heart: "Stick your ski pole!" or "How to open a frozen locked car 'naturally,'" or "Liqueur à la shallot," which would be tasteless, if it weren't for the garlic and the toad… yet the jokes never get old. Colorful Odyssey (Act 3): A group of passive-aggressive ex-musicians? Let's bow down before the greatest film by Jean-Marie Poiré, My Best Pals (1989), co-written with Christian Clavier, where various artistic experiences, in flashback, with a handful of old friends who have all become bourgeois to varying degrees, produce a more melancholy laugh. Alongside actors Bacri, Clavier, and Lanvin, we have a soft spot for Darroussin, his wavy hair flying in the wind, his brain a bit dulled by too much pot, saying in his slow drawl, looking to reassure, "No one's dead..."("It's no big deal"). As Georges Brassens sang, "They weren't sophisticated friends/ Little Castor and Pollux / They weren't friends chosen / By Montaigne and La Boetie / But they were pals who got on well / Friends came first."
In The Hangover by Todd Philips (2009), the only American film in the all-nighter, friendship becomes downright dangerous. Colorful Odyssey (Act 4) involves guys wasted-out-of-their-minds… do not try this at home! The future groom goes missing in Las Vegas after a bachelor party goes awry, and none of the guys remember what happened- the situation sucks. Hilarious and ultra-trash, the movie gives the comedy team of Judd Apatow's nice group of altar boys some competition… At the heart of The Hangover is one of the choicest characters of American comedy of all time: the bearded redhead who's as unpredictable as he is ill-mannered, played by Zach Galifianakis.
Colorful Odyssey (Act 5) is up to you and your movie buff pals: Go to the Band of Buddies All-nighter and make some new friends!
L’aventure c’est l’aventure / The Hangover/ French Fried Vacation 2 / My Best Pals
At the Halle Tony Garnier
Saturday, October 15 from 9pm till dawn
