Un, deux, trois, soleil (1993)
Directed by Bertrand Blier

Film Review

Bertrand Blier's films are always refreshingly innovative, often somewhat off the wall, and sometimes frustratingly hard to fathom. Un deux trois soleil is one of his films which fits all three of these categories, a bizarre synthesis of social realism and a girl's lurid fantasies. The film was nominated for five Césars in 1994, winning two awards in the categories of Most Promising Actor (Olivier Martinez, who followed this up as the male lead in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Le Hussard sur le toit (1995)) and Best Music (Khaled Barkat).

Even more so than Trop belle pour toi (1989) and Merci la vie (1991), the two film that Blier made directly before this one, Un deux trois soleil throws out of the window the conventional linear narrative and mixes up reality and imagination to the point that the two become indistinguisable - just a bizarre, disjointed continuum of events that is as enticing as it is bewildering. It is probably one of Blier's less successful attempts at playing with cinematic form although the film does show great creative flair and benefits from some pleasing performances, notably from Anouk Grinberg, Myriam Boyer and Italian heart-throb Marcello Mastroianni in one of his last screen roles.

Film Synopsis

Victorine is an imaginative teenage girl who is having a hard time growing up in the rough suburbs of Marseille.  Her alcoholic father, a Greek immigrant, is too fond of the pastis to show much interest in her, and her mother makes up for this neglect by constantly imposing herself on her.  So depressing is her real life that Victorine frequently takes flight in her dream world and imagines all sorts of things, woven from her past memories and her hopes for the future.  In her grim entourage the person she dotes on most is Gladys, a black mystique who apparently brought a young boy back to life after being shot by a policeman.  Victorine then acquires her first boyfriend, but not long after she has presented him to her father he is taken from her, by an evil maniac with a rifle.  Victorine's revenge is swift and once she has dealt with one of her grievances others are likely to go the same way.  It is now that her future husband Maurice enters her life...