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Folies Bergère is full of French charm

Dec 19, 2014

Brigitte and her husband Xavier are empty-nesters, comfortably situated in Normandy with their boutique Charolais cattle business. No country bumpkins, they are a stylish couple in their way – she with her predilection for foreign jazz while wearing her mad plaid cape and fur hat everywhere, and he with his dapper affection for an Austin Morris.

Xavier excels at animal husbandry, but perhaps not so much as a husband or else why would eczema keep troubling his wife? The French can be serious about ailments, so perhaps that rash says the petit spark of je ne sais quoi has drifted off in the cold autumn mist, and is a prelude to the full snap of a coming winter.

A full-blown party held next door by a group of young Parisians shakes up the couple’s dynamic. While Xavier sleeps, the music entices Brigitte across the field and into flirtation with Stan, who prefers this more mature woman to the barely adult girls who have been hanging on his words.

Without a fuss, Brigitte arranges a few days in the metropolis, apparently to consult a dermatologist. Instead, we see her hunting out various American Apparel shops, where she might run into young Stan. Thank goodness more age-appropriate eye candy arrives in the suave form of Danish periodontist in town for a conference. Michael Nyqvist is handsome in anyone’s books.

It is a wonder that such a globally famous French actor as Isabelle Huppert, who is so often cast as uber-chic, can pull off the role of a rural farmer. She last starred for the director Marc Fitoussi in Copacabana as the zany mother Babou, who tries to conform in order gain invitation to her daughter’s conventional wedding.

In Folies Bergère, Huppert owns the role as the idiosyncratic Brigitte, and the tiara she places on the massive prize-winning bull is probably the director’s in-joke reference to her role as Babou. Fitoussi examines mature relationships and family dynamics again in this film. The daughter is always off-stage, but we see that Xavier and Brigitte’s son – at acrobatic school, yet on hand to help when needed on the farm – gives credence to the couple and is pivotal in their relationship.

This film satisfies on many counts, not least that it swerves in unexpected directions without missing a beat. Each character and action is accountable and relatable, and the heightened reality of the stunning town and country scenery is off-set charmingly with the odd touches to the narrative of fairytale endings. Lovely.

 

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