Alors voilà, (1997)
Directed by Michel Piccoli

Film Review

Michel Piccoli is a man who needs no introduction. One of the busiest and most highly thought of actors of stage and screen in France, he has appeared in over 150 films and is one of the most recognisable faces in French cinema, renowned for his appearances in such classic films as Belle de jour (1967), Les Choses de la vie (1970) and Milou en mai (1990). But being a world class actor is not enough for Piccoli - he has also had a hankering to be a film director. He finally got round to making his feature debut in 1997 with this idiosyncratic portrait of a worryingly dysfunctional French family. Prior to this, he had directed a short insert in the Amnesty International anthology Contre l'oubli (1991) and a short film entitled Train de nuit (1994).

Rather than play things safe and opt for the kind of film that someone might actually want to pay to watch, Piccoli fashions himself as the grand auteur and does just about everything a first-time filmmaker can do to alienate his audience. Virtually plotless and wallowing in its clumsy approximation to cinéma vérité, Alors voilà, looks like a poor man's attempt at imitating a Maurice Pialat or Jean-Luc Godard film. It hardly looks as if the film was scripted at all - in fact you could easily believe that Piccoli and his cast improvised the whole thing in a matter of hours, without even having so much as discussed the project beforehand. It is to Piccoli's credit that he should attempt something so unusual for his first feature but the film just reeks of amateurishness and is as lacking in charm as it is in real artistry. No doubt encouraged by the sycophants, Piccoli persevered in his new art and followed this with the marginally better La Plage noire (2001).

Film Synopsis

Constantin is a patriarchal grandfather who insists that his three sons bring their families to his home for a meal each week.  Inevitably, this get-together proves to be a complete nightmare for everyone involved, but the ritual has to be gone through each and every week without fail.  Even though the three sons do not get on well together, they agree to pool their resources to buy a lorry.  As they do so, the seemingly benign Constantin decides to indoctrinate his grandchildren in his shady exploits...