Potiche (2010)
Directed by François Ozon

Film Review

After a series of tepid and frankly bizarre excursions into the realms of self-indulgent whimsy (Angel, Ricky, Le Refuge), director François Ozon shows a magnificent return to form with his latest film, a classic battle of the sexes comedy which prompts us to ask ourselves whether women today do enjoy the same rights and freedoms as men or whether sexual equality still remains a distant dream.  Potiche may be set in 1977, around the time when the Women's Liberation movement came to be a force worth reckoning with, but it is clearly intended as wry commentary on gender politics in the 21st century.  The film is loosely based on a hit stage play of the same title by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, which was first performed in 1980 with Jacqueline Maillan in the lead role.  Ozon reworks the play into a 1970s-era social farce which superficially resembles a pro-feminist satire, but which is in fact a subtle study in identity, in keeping with much of the director's work to date.

Headlining Ozon's most prestigious cast list to date are Catherine Deneuve and Depardieu, their seventh screen collaboration in thirty years (and neither looks much the worse for wear).  The on-screen magic is still there, and even though Depardieu is cast in one of his more macho roles, Deneuve still manages to look as though she is the one with the Y chromosome, even if outwardly she resembles the acme of grace and femininity.  The part of Suzanne Pujol is a gift for Deneuve, allowing her to do what she does best, playing a strong but sympathetic woman with comic verve, wiping the floor with her male co-stars as she does so.  (The fact that she ends up running an umbrella factory is a cheeky nod to the film that made the actress a star, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.)

Although Deneuve's portrayal here does bring to mind those ghastly caricatures of iron-willed women that were endemic in soaps and sitcoms of the 1970s and 80s (doubtless influenced by a certain British Prime Minister of the time), there is also a reality and human side to her character, something that is perhaps lacking in most of the other protagonists.  Whilst it is a treat to sit back and watch an ensemble that includes such talented performers as Fabrice Luchini, Karin Viard, Judith Godrèche, Jérémie Renier and Sergi López, the sheer abundance of star power in this film does feel a little gratuitous and distracts needlessly from the film's deeper messages.

It is gratifying to see Ozon return to the gloriously kitsch stylisation of his early films, Sitcom (1998), Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes (2000) and 8 femmes (2002).  What made Ozon such an interesting and likeable director in his early years was the almost surreal theatricality of his mise-en-scène, which somehow rendered his explorations of identity both provocative and sinister.  In Potiche, Ozon ups the kitsch quotient even further and projects us into what feels like some kind of ghastly tribute to late 1970s television, a time when glamour troopers like Farrah Fawcett and Stefanie Powers were out in force (often in tight-fitting tracksuits), attempting to strike a blow for female equality whilst carelessly firing just about every adolescent male fantasy as they did so.  The dialogue sounds phoney, the story is ludicrously contrived, and yet, for all its apparent falseness, the film somehow manages to ring true - a slice of life viewed through the prism of a tacky old sitcom.

Like the two directors who appear to have had the greatest influence on him - Douglas Sirk and Rainer Fassbinder - Ozon employs a style of cinema that is trashy, démodé and easily open to ridicule, so that he can sneakily make a damning critique of contemporary society without anyone (other than the enlightened minority) noticing.  You have to be either French or up to date with French current affairs to catch the anachronistic little in-jokes which give the film its piquancy.   Deneuve's character was apparently inspired by Ségolène Royal, the Socialist Party candidate in the 2007 French Presidential election, whilst Fabrice Luchini's character clearly owes something to alpha male Nicolas Sarkozy, even borrowing his tough love, macho posturing rhetoric.  This reinforces the impression that Potiche is very much a film for our time, one that questions what gender equality really is and whether it is indeed desirable for men and women to be equal in every respect.  François Ozon leaves us with much food for thought whilst dishing out plenty of laughs along the way in this slick, star-fuelled comedy.

Film Synopsis

In 1977, Robert Pujol is the owner of an umbrella factory, which he runs with an iron hand.  At home, he treats his wife Suzanne and their grown-up children, Joëlle and Laurent, in the same despotic manner as his unfortunate employees.  When a strike is declared, Robert falls ill and his wife has to wade into the breach, aided by the town's mayor Maurice Babin, her one-time lover.  As she takes over the running of the factory, Suzanne soon proves that she is better suited for the job than her husband.  When Robert returns after a rest cure he is horrified to discover that his wife has no intention of giving up her newly acquired freedom...