Jacquou le croquant (2007)
Directed by Laurent Boutonnat

Film Review

Laurent Boutonnat's transition from director of lurid music videos to fully fledged feature filmmaker was never going to be easy and if his latest film is anything to go by he should probably stick with what he knows best.  Jacquou le croquant, an epic blockbuster adaptation of Eugène Le Roy's late 19th Century novel, feels like a horrific accident in a kitsch factory, a seemingly interminably spectacle of cinematic clichés that, whilst spuriously alluring from a purely visual point of view and probably rollicking good entertainment for those of primary school age, is completely lacking in substance and narrative cohesion.  Sitting through two and half hours of this characterless, colour saturated, totally anaemic monstrosity will prove to be more of a challenge for the discerning cinemagoer than having to read every volume of Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu in colloquial Serbo-Croat.  The sad thing is that Boutonnat's cinematic style - which seems to be more about creating an immediate visual impact than saying anything remotely profound or emotionally involving - is becoming all too prevalent these days.  It's a ghastly thought, but one day all films may be like this - soulless collisions of light and celluloid.

Film Synopsis

In the early 1800s, Jacquou has good reason to hate the vile nobleman Count de Nansac.  It was the count who brought a sudden end to his happy childhood days in the Périgord by getting into a dispute with his father which led to his imprisonment and death.  An orphan not long afterwards, Jacquou had the good fortune to be adopted by a kindly priest, Bonal.  It is thanks to this impeccable man of God that he has grown up to be an honest and considerate man, albeit one who still harbours a vicious grudge against the man who robbed him of his parents.  Jacquou can count on the support of his friends, who include the beautiful Lina, as he embarks on his own personal vendetta to resolve the injustices of the past.  Even a peasant such as he has a right to some self-respect...