Adieu Berthe - L'enterrement de mémé (2012)
Directed by Bruno Podalydès

Film Review

After the slightly disappointing Bancs publics (Versailles rive droite) (2009), the incomparable Podalydès brothers, Bruno and Denis, are back on form with their latest wacky comedy, Adieu Berthe - L'enterrement de mémé (a.k.a. Granny's Funeral).  This, their eighth collaboration, is easily their most inspired screen offering so far, a highly entertaining tragicomic account of a man's search for identity that is easily in the same league as the duo's previous oddball comedies Versailles rive gauche (1992), Dieu seul me voit (1998) and Liberté-Oléron (2001).  This is a film that is guaranteed to make you weep with laughter, and stands a pretty good chance of being the classiest French comedy of 2012.

And with such a great cast, it is hard to see how the film could possibly fail to be an outright winner.  In addition to the multi-talented Denis Podalydès (last seen imitating Nicolas Sarkozy in Xavier Durringer's La Conquête, 2011), there is Valérie Lemercier, at her effervescent best as the feisty mistress who cannot help speaking her mind (cue some of the funniest exchanges in the film), and Michel Vuillermoz, hilarious as the satanic funeral director who is on a one-man mission to give inhumation a 21st century makeover.  Bruno Podalydès gets to appear in front of the camera as the more sympathetic funeral director, who offers a more discrete, low budget option (not to be confused with thermos flasks).  Pierre Arditi, Isabelle Candelier and Samir Guesmi complete the ensemble à la perfection - if you're going to serve up a banquet, it's only right you should choose the best ingredients.

As well as being a very, very funny film (and more sophisticated than most mainstream French comedies), Adieu Berthe is also intensely moving in places and tackles some serious themes with surprising insight and depth.  In some respects it feels like one of Woody Allen's better films, probing the more mystifying aspects of human experience with a disarming mix of irreverent humour and heart-tugging sincerity.  Armand's crisis of identity is one that we can readily engage with, and whilst most of the comic situations are bordering on the absurd, there is a great deal of truth and wisdom in the film.  Bruno Podalydès's direction is at its most inspired and endows the film with a touching lyricism, which is most potent in the quieter scenes in which brother Denis takes us inside his character, showing us a glimpse of the butterfly that is struggling desperately to throw off its unyielding cocoon.

It is worth noting that before he made this film, Denis Podalydès played Shakespeare's Richard II on stage (first at the Festival d'Avignon in July 2010, then in Paris in January 2011).  The character Podalydès plays in this film, Armand, could be mistaken for a direct descendent of the ill-fated English monarch, as he is a similar compulsive prevaricator, a man who cannot commit himself to one course of action but instead endlessly hedges his bets (fortunately, he doesn't end up being deposed by an overly ambitious cousin and stabbed to death in a dank medieval castle).  It takes the death of a woman he hardly knew to resolve Armand's multiple existential dilemmas.  By immersing himself in the past life of his dearly departed grandmother, Armand finally finds the key to his own identity, and thereby discovers what he wants out of life.  Death does not always have to be an end; it can sometimes be a beginning.  The Podalydès brothers have done it again - amused and enlightened us with another generous helping of wit and philosophy.  Dare we ask for more?

Film Synopsis

Armand is a mild-mannered 50-something who leads a double life.  He manages a pharmacy in a Paris suburb with his wife Hélène but his real passion in life is conjuring, for which he has a natural talent.  He also has a mistress, Alix, but whilst he is passionately in love with her he cannot bring himself to leave his wife.  So he zips endlessly back and forth between two households on his electric scooter, knowing that unless he makes up his mind soon he will lose Alix forever.  Armand's existential crisis is deepened when he learns that his grandmother Berthe has died, all but forgotten in an out-of-the-way retirement home.  Armand takes charge of the funeral arrangements but again he is torn between an elaborate burial with all the latest high tech trimmings (the choice of his intimidating mother-in-law) or a much more modest cremation.  To burn or not to burn, that is the question...