La Tête en friche (2010)

2010 

My Afternoons with Margueritte

Directed by:  Jean Becker

Music: Laurent Voulzy

Starring: Gérard Depardieu, Gisèle Casadesus, Claire Maurier, 

Sophie Guillemin, François-Xavier Demaison, Maurane, 

Florian Yven, Patrick Bouchitey, Régis Laspalès, 

Jean-François Stévenin, Lyes Salem, Matthieu Dahan,

Bruno Ricci, Mélanie Bernier

What happens when a chance encounter with a stranger changes your life in ways that are unfathomable? What are the odds that you will discover a connection between the two of you that cannot be explained? When you talk about 'love' between two people, is there a definition that fits all relationships? Director Jean Becker (son of the great French noir director Jacques Becker) makes a movie that has a will-'o-the-wisp quality about it. Yet, the simple tale is grounded in the commonplace, everyday life of an semi-literate villager and the strange-but-not-quite experiences that befall him during his lunchtimes at a nearby park.

In a little village that still retains its old-time charm, we first meet Germain Chazes ( Gérard Depardieu), an unprepossessing hulk of a handyman, as he finishes his job and leaves, counting his day's pay. He is furious when he realises that he's been shortchanged, but his employer doesn't budge. 

When we see Germain next, he is busy scribbling his name on a plaque under the statue in the nearby park. Then he walks further into the park where he comes across a kit of pigeons. He begins to count them when he is startled by a woman's voice saying, '19'. He hadn't paid much attention to the old woman (Gisèle Casadesus) sitting on the bench. He is even more amused when she calls him 'young man'. But to her, he is. 

She is intrigued by him as well. Why is he counting the pigeons?  

No two are exactly alike, and they all have different personalities, so he names them to keep track... They are White Feathers, Pierre, Chikadee,  Marguerite... Oh, she interrupts delightedly. Like me! 

Her name is Margueritte, avec deux t (with two ts). Her father didn't know how to spell very well, she explains, and her mother decided to let it be. She was born from a love story, Margueritte continues, like everyone. No, says Germain. Not everyone. Some are mistakes. He gets up to leave. Margueritte, her attention held, gently enquires whether they will meet again. Yes, he says, and then, kindly warning her to keep her handbag closer so no one will snatch it, walks into the restaurant opposite the park. 

 

It is obvious that Germain is well-liked by his friends, even if condescended to by Msr. Landremont, his employer. When Landremont makes fun of him, Germain automatically remembers how he was cruelly teased by his teacher when he was a boy. Justifiably annoyed, he leaves the restaurant and goes back home. 'Home' is a trailer in the backyard of his alcoholic mother's house, where he grows vegetables (which he gives Francine at the  restaurant in return for the use of her van, and also sells in the local farmer's market). His mother, a single mom, had never been maternal; all Germain can remember is being berated and insulted every moment of his life with her, both in private and in public. But there is one person who loves him. Annette (Sophie Guillemin), his girlfriend. Her love is for the man that Germain is - kind, gentle, loving. 

 

The next afternoon, he is back in the park: scribbling his name on the war monument, and counting the pigeons, when Margueritte arrives. She has a thought about pigeons she wants to share, but as she remarks, she forgets her thoughts most of the time. She pulls out her book, The Plague by Albert Camus to refresh her memory. Germain is entranced by the description though he does not agree with it. Margueritte offers to lend him the book, but Germain, his recollections of his boyhood humiliation at his teacher's hands still fresh in his mind, tells her it would be better if she read to him. Margueritte is thrilled. She likes to read aloud, and when she does it on her own, people look at her askance. Now she has an avid listener. The imagery in the book is powerful, and Germain is shaken by the visuals. He is sensitive to the atmosphere. 

 

The afternoon readings continue, and ten days later, they have completed The Plague.  At the end, Margueritte gives him the greatest gift of all: she tells Germain that he is an excellent reader. He? Yes, for reading is also listening. She gives him her copy of The Plague, for, she says, she is just a courier. 

That night, unable to sleep, Germain valiantly gives Camu a try, an effort that stands him in good stead the next day when his comrades are discussing an earthquake. Landremont is shocked that Germain (whom he has often dismissed as a moron) has actually read Camus. Oh, not all, says Germain casually. Just The Plague, The Fall, and  The Stranger.  

 

Landremont is taken aback, but before he can probe further, Germaine notices that Lorraine is not herself. It is because Youssef, the waiter (and Lorraine's lover), has run away with a customer. Kind-hearted Germain tries to console Lorraine, but manages, as always to open his mouth and put both his feet in. His friends, listening, are in splits. Germain leaves in a huff.

But his afternoons with Margueritte continue, and she reads passages from Romain Gary's memoirs, passages that talk of maternal love. This leads Germain to confide in Margueritte about his own strained relationship with his mother. 

At their next meeting, Margueritte brings Germain another gift - a dictionary. It will help him, she says, to travel from one word to the next. What would he like to read next? An adventure? A mystery? Amazon Indians, he tells her. He had a comic about Indian when he was a boy, and was curious to hear more about them. She has just the book in her library, she tells him, but he will have to come to her place - her room in the retirement home where she lives. So tea on Tuesday, it is. Which leads to slight misunderstanding with Annette who thinks the flowers he's gathered from his garden are for her.

When Germain meets Margueritte, he returns the dictionary to her. It is of no use to him, he says because he doesn't know how to spell. He'd tried to learn with her, he says, but it hurt too much. It was better when things were blurry; now that he started, he's beginning to see his flaws. Oh, says Margueritte in disappointment. She'd found a book on the Amazon Indians, but perhaps she should keep it back? Germain is intrigued by the synopsis of the story, and they spend a happy hour together, she reading, and he listening intently.

This will perhaps be the last story she will read him; she has macular degeneration, and will soon be blind. She won't be able to count the pigeons any more, she tells him with a laugh. She will need a cane to walk in the street. Germain is taken aback, but he tells her he will take care of the cane.

Back in his trailer, he is working on carving a head for the cane, when Annette storms in. She'd waited for him all day; who did he give the flowers to? What's her name? Germain is taken aback, but snaps back, her name is Margueritte, with two ts. She is 95, and he loves her. Annette quietly sits down as Germain continues, more temperately. What will happen to Margueritte, he asks, when her world goes dark? She lives for her books. What will happen to her when she cannot read? You read to her, says Annette, you have to try. So he practices.

 

When he meets Margueritte the next afternoon, he has a couple of surprises in store for her. Margueritte is both touched and thrilled. 

Germain has blossomed under Margueritte's confidence in his abilities, and her unconditional affection for him, but Margueritte's life is beginning to fall apart. However, there are a few more surprises for both of them before the film winds down to a very predictable, but utterly satisfying (to me) end. 

Gérard Depardieu, older now, and much heavier, fit into the skin of the half-literate, clumsy, bovine hulk, Germaine, just as much as he fits into the shapeless blue overalls that is his usual costume. The character, abused and neglected by his mother, and made fun of by his friends, could have been much darker. But between Becker and Depardieu, they made Germain a pained but relatively contented character, who accepts life as it comes to him. 

 

He is kind, helpful, cheerful, even capable of loving Annette even though he is against having a child for fear that with his history, he would be incapable of loving a child. He is a poet, Germain, even though he would not know 'poetry' if it hit him in the face. He might be 'simple', but the way Depardieu plays him, with warmth, he is both innocent and self-aware at the same time, though prone to opening his mouth and putting both his feet in. Also, he is no beaten-down village idiot; he is perfectly capable of standing up for himself. Only, he doesn't often care enough.

Angry though he is at Landremont for cheating him out of his rightly-earned wages, and at humiliating him in public, Germain is still willing to leave Annette's side to help him. Hurt though he is at his mother's contempt, he still takes her of her as long as she lives. (And she is not one-dimensionally evil either; she abuses him, but she protects him from others' abuse.) He is tender with Annette, and treats Margueritte like he treats his pigeons - with affection, accompanied by an innocent wonder that she treats him like an equal. He sees Margueritte as a thing of great beauty, but fragile, much like the glass doe he sees in a shop window.

The joy, the warmth, the charm, also comes from the elegantly beautiful Gisèle Casadesus, who plays the gentle Margueritte (avec deux 't'). There is a self-deprecating (and puckish) humour that underlines her description of herself and her life. She is old enough to have an understanding of the man whom chance or Fate brought into her life. What sets her relationship with Germaine apart is that Margueritte holds nothing against Germaine, not even his self-professed ignorance of reading. She is a retired scientist, one who is bravely (and not in a flag-waving manner) facing a lot of upheaval in her personal life, but there is nothing but acceptance of her circumstances, though she does not negate them. 

In actual fact, that is the strength of La Tête en friche - that the characters, both slightly on the outside looking in, both neglected, one benignly, one traumatically, are also self-aware and accepting of their own frailties and that of their fellow humans. Depardieu and Casadesus infuse this simple tale with gentleness and affection, and an unexpected sunniness that warms the heart.  

Based on a novel of the same name by Marie-Sabine Roger, La Tête en friche (literally, A Blank Slate or Idle head - I have no idea why the American title diverged so much but I have given up wondering) is a charming tale of two lost people finding joy in an unexpectedly symbiotic relationship. Becker keeps the tale taut, focussing mainly on the unlikely friendship between Germain and Margueritte, but never letting us forget the more serious themes that criss-cross the narrative. Yet, the pace is gentle, almost langorous, and there is an appreciation of words, both written and spoken. That, in fact, is the foundation of their strange friendship - she loves words, he is curious about books, not having had a great relationship with them in his childhood. 

As always, when I finished writing the film up, I read some of the reviews. I found most people harping on the 'love' between Germain and Margueritte, and having watched the movie, I find myself baffled. What love, if by 'love' you mean a romantic love?  Margueritte is very fond of Germain (and he, of her) as is evidenced by her increasing interest in his life. It is her interest, and confidence in him that makes him understand that he is not quite as much of a village idiot as his friends consider him. (And as he considers himself.) Yes, he loves her, and in the end, he is heard quoting: Not always are stories just made of love. Sometimes love is not named. But it's love just the same. But where did people see a romantic love between the two characters that caused them such disgust?

Germaine loves Annette (the ravishing Sophie Guillemin) and she loves him. (And that seems to be another sore point with most viewers. 'Improbably attraction' someone called it, 'totally implausible' said another. My question is why is it improbable or implausible? Who but the two people in a relationship can tell you why they love the other? Does the heart have a reason? Does it need one?) Watch the movie, and I, for one, can see why Annette feels the way she does about this kind, gentle giant. Despite the difference in their ages, she is the one who drives the relationship. 

To me, this film has charm. It has simplicity. It has innocence. Yes, it has 'romance'  - not as we know it today, but harking back to a simpler time when 'love' could mean so much more than just 'romantic  love'.  Spend an afternoon or two with Germain and Margueritte, do. It is worthwhile trying to see how strangers can connect in the most unexpected of ways, and how liking and friendship, and yes, love, can bloom in the most unexpected of places.