Attila Marcel (2013)
Directed by Sylvain Chomet

Film Review

With his latest feature, French film director Sylvain Chomet makes the transition from retro-themed animation to retro-themed live action movie with aplomb, serving up another kitsch-laden collation that positively sizzles with charm and good-natured fun.   Chomet's previous two features - Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003) and L'Illusionniste (2010) - were animated masterpieces that revelled in nostalgia, the former strongly influenced by its author's childhood memories, the latter a warm tribute to the legendary filmmaker Jacques Tati.  With Attila Marcel, his third full-length film, Chomet clings to the past like a barnacle to a seawall, happily referencing Tati and other cineastes of yesteryear (most notably Jacques Demy) as he throws together another heart-warming tale about frustrated desires and a lost past.

As in Chomet's previous films, the striking retro-feel is not a casual embellishment but an appropriate stylistic choice that is in keeping with the central theme of the film, which is the importance of memories in shaping our identity and providing an essential bridge to the past.   Memories are crucial in defining who we are but they can also be a straitjacket, limiting our view of the world and restricting our development.  This is the case of the film's central character, a mute 30-something named Paul who, having suffered a traumatic incident in early childhood, has been unable to develop into an adult.

By overplaying the nostalgia card, Chomet locks us in his backwards-facing fantasy world, thereby giving us a sense of the hopelessness of Paul's predicament.  Without an awareness of the present and a desire to embrace the future, the past becomes a prison - a stale ballad endlessly replaying itself.  Fortunately for Paul there is someone who has the power to reanimate his past and hence allow him to awake, Lazarus-like, in the present.  Appropriately, that someone is Madame Proust, named after the French writer of the famous seven volume tome À la recherche du temps perdu, Marcel Proust.  Like her illustrious namesake, Madame Proust has faith in the ability of madeleine cakes to revive dormant memories, but (just to make sure) she also plies Paul with herbal tea and mind-altering substances to get the desired result.

In his most challenging screen role to date, Guillaume Gouix brings a Tati-esque pathos to his portrayal of Paul, rendering the character both funny and sympathetic.  Gouix's stony features are more reminiscent of Buster Keaton than Jacques Tati and, like Keaton, it is with his eyes that he communicates most of what he has to say.  And how can we not pity Gouix's character, trapped in a state of arrested development that is exacerbated by the aggressive possessiveness of his over-attentive aunts who form a creepy, two-headed hydra?   The latter, humorously played by Bernadette Lafont (in her last screen role before her death in 2013) and Hélène Vincent, are more grotesque than the sisters in Cocteau's Les Parents terribles, and look like something from an X-rated fairytale.  Compared with these monsters, the weird, ukulele-playing Madame Proust (Anne Le Ny) comes across as a kind of New Age fairy godmother, the kind of aunt every boy wishes he has.

Attila Marcel may be a live-action film, made with living, breathing actors, but it feels every bit as quirky and cartoonish as Chomet's previous animated features.  Yet, for all its kitsch stylisation, off-the-wall humour and occasional excursions into the bizarrely surreal, the film is intensely involving and relates a humane fable about a sympathetic soul finding his identity that we can all relate to.  The narrative may be a little uneven and drawn-out in places, but thanks to Guillaume Gouix's arresting presence and some inspired comic digressions Attila Marcel is an enjoyable auteur oddity - the French feel-good movie of the year.

Film Synopsis

Paul, 33, inhabits a Parisian apartment with his well-meaning aunts Annie and Anna, who have looked after him since he was two and who dream that one day he will become a virtuoso pianist.  Ever since the tragic day when his parents were taken from him, Paul has been locked in an infantile state, unable to speak a word.  His is the most solitary of lives. He divides his time between his piano and his aunts' dancing lessons for which he provides the musical accompaniment.  One day, Paul has an encounter with his neighbour, Madame Proust, that will have a life-changing effect.  With the aid of a special herbal tea, she awakens his deepest memories and provides him with a way out of his present cloistered existence...