Crustacés et coquillages (2005)

Crustacés et coquillages (2005)


..It's the taste of salt on your skin I miss most,
the taste of the sea where we made love...
Your taste of shellfish.
I love you, I love you,I'll love you forever.
My future is with you.We'll stand up to others.
Our love is beautiful.....

Nikada nisam volio ponedeljak, pa tako ni ovaj! Kiša i dalje pada i više sam zaboravio kako izgleda sunce.

Kako se sinoc nisam spremio za posao , sada sam u totalnom haosu. Šta obući, trebam se obrijati...
Koje su mi obaveze... Najradije bi da se može vrijeme vratiti dan unazad pa da sve to pozavršavam. Prehlada je prošla i vrjeme je da se malo pokrenem.

Ovaj film sam sinoć odgledao pred spavanje. Lijepa romantična komedija sa mnoštvo likova.
Prikazuje naizgled srećnu i savršenu porodicu.
Béatrix i Marc, sa dvoje tinejđera dolaze na ljetovanje negdije u južnu Francusku .
Ubjeđeni su da je njihov sin Mathieu koji je tu sa njegovim prijateljem Martinom gay i žele da mu pomognu da to objavi. Međutim Mathieu nije gay , ali ne poriče to jer želi da zaštiti druga Martina koji to jeste i noću se iskrada iz kuće i odlazi u obližnji park na porcije seksa. Martin je i pored toga zaljubljen i Mathieua. Kčerka Laura je uglavnom odsutna sa filmskog platna jer kad ode sa jednim motoristom u provod do pred kraj filma se ne vraća .
Marc je opsjednut sinovom seksualnošću i posebno sa njegovim drugom. Stalno nešto radi u garaži, ponekad naviruje da vidi Martina kako se tušira i drka kurac. Njegova žena u najboljim godinama za sex ima ljubavnika koji joj namiruje seksualne apetite.
I sve bi to bilo poprilično idilično i dosadno da se ne pojavljuje vodoinstalater Didier. Upoznaje ga Mathieu koji je jednom prilikom potajno pratio druga Martina dok je ovaj išao na kres u obližnju šumu.
Uspostavlja se da je vodoinstalater bivši ljubavnik Marca. I tu stara ljubav vaskrsava. Iako se nisu viđeli toliko godina nikada se nisu prestajali voljeti. Didier je svo vrijeme čuvao jedno Markovo staro pismo u kojem piše:

..It's the taste of salt on your skin I miss most,
the taste of the sea where we made love...
Your taste of shellfish.
I love you, I love you,I'll love you forever.
My future is with you.We'll stand up to others.
Our love is beautiful.....

Nakon jednog seksa odluče da ne lažu više i da sve to objave. Nakon što od sina sazna da joj je muž peder Béatrix odluči da kaže Marcu kako ima ljubavnika.
Huh jedva ovo otkucah, a ako ste sve ovo razumjeli čestitam.
Ova lagana komedija sa happyendom je zaista opuštajuća i lakše ju je odgledati nego opisati.
Film je sa Engleskim titlom.

Directors: Olivier Ducastel (co-director) ,Jacques Martineau (co-director)
Writers: Olivier Ducastel (scenario) & Jacques Martineau (scenario)
Release Date: 30 March 2005 (France)
Genre: Comedy / Musical / Romance more
Plot Outline:
For summer vacation, Marc (Melki) and Béatrix (Tedeschi) take their two kids to the seaside house of Marc's youth, where their daughter takes up with a biker and their sons roams the beach with his best friend, who is in love with him. Things get steamier when Béatrix's lover Mathieu shows up, and Marc's old flame appears. more

Plot Keywords: Southern France / Shower / Mother Son Relationship / Masturbation / Homosexuality
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast
(Credited cast)
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi ... Béatrix
Gilbert Melki ... Marc
Jean-Marc Barr ... Didier
Jacques Bonnaffé ... Mathieu
Edouard Collin ... Martin
Romain Torres ... Charly
Sabrina Seyvecou ... Laura
Yannick Baudin ... Michaël
Julien Weber ... Sylvain
Sébastien Cormier ... Laura's New Friend
Marion Roux ... Billiard Player


Also Known As: Cockles and Muscles (UK), Cote d'Azur (USA)

Runtime: 96 min
Country: France
Language: French


COTE D'AZUR is a simply charming romantic comedy. A family of four escapes for a summer vacation at a seaside villa and find that romantic adventures are the main excursion. The film's director provides a light, magical tone that allows enchantment and reality to mix effortlessly. The performances are all first rate as well, giving us a realistic family unit without sacrificing individuality. The plot is both original and surprising, taking both the viewer and the characters in unexpected directions. The balance here is superb. Even a detour into musical comedy fits neatly into the fabric of this likable film. Credits roll over a surreal song and dance that will have the viewer wishing they, too, were visiting the COTE D'AZUR.

Summer holidays on the seaside provide plenty of fodder for a certain type of French cinema dealing with sexual awakenings wrapped with witty comedy. Eric Rohmer used the motif in his simple and mischievous A Summer's Tale (1996) and François Ozon explored the same narrative path with his career-making short A Summer Robe (1996). Cockles and Muscles, by the directing duo Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau (Drôle de Félix, Ma Vie), fits in with this small string of films, but expands the concept further to create a semi-idealised view of family life based on fluid sexualities and acceptance. The result is a feel-good, sparkling comedy punctuated with exclamation mark moments and hints of vaudeville. To top it all up, there is even a full-blown musical scene.

The characters are played by a real coup of a cast. Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi is a vision of languidness and debonair attitude as the liberal, pot-smoking Béatrix. She and her husband Marc (Gilbert Merki) are spending summer holidays in Marc's family cottage in the Côte d'azur with their two teenage children, Martin (Edouard Collin) and Laura (Sabrina Seyvecou). Martin's best friend, the openly gay Charly, joins the family and ignites a series of character entrances that mark the narrative shifts and plot twists that propel the film forward in a pleasant, rhythmic way. Charly, who represents the type of post-New Queer gay character whose sexuality is a given and not a source of conflict, nurtures a platonic love for Martin, who pretends to be gay to his parents so that they leave him alone. Meanwhile Laura, who is on screen only as a sporadic support, is more interested in copping off with her motorbike-straddling stallion.

Once the scene is set, after a few showers (an important motif in the film) and the recurring sounds of doors being slammed, a couple more characters enter the fray to protagonise new episodes. Saying exactly who they are and what they do would spoil the unexpected surprises that the script generously provide but what happens during the holiday changes the family dynamics for good as well as the notion of what makes a 'family movie'.

One of the pleasures derived from watching this film stems from the precise timing of the actors and the often quirky dialogue exchanges. Ducastel and Martineau prove with this new addition to their filmography that they definitely are a force to reckon with in French cinema, evidence of which was clear with the tender road movie Dróle de Felix (2000) and the experimental video diary Ma vraie vie r' Rouen (2002). In Cockles and Muscles, they use elements of gay culture, such as Charly's dress code, Jean Marc Barr's clone-ish Didier, trips to a cruising spot etc, and strip them of any political or moral connotation, something that comedy is more apt to do than drama. Clichés are used with a well-measured dose of irony and appear completely acceptable because of that as well as the comic effect they create.

There is no confrontation in Cockles and Muscles, only interaction and a sense of discovery that the characters find in each other, especially the older ones. Martineau said that when writing the script he tried to find a balance between Jacques Demy's action-ridden style and Rohmer's wit. It's safe to say that his intention to do that was accomplished.