Ridicule
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Movie Reviews of Ridicule
Movie Review: About the DVD...
Summary: 4 Stars
The DVD is pretty bare bones. You get a nice widescreen transfer (the full-screen VHS was pan and scan, so you do see more image with the widescreen) and surround sound. The English subtitles are not "burned in" to the image...you must activate them with the captions option on your DVD player.The only "extra" is a commercial ballyhooing Miramax's achievements in recent years.
Movie Review: Excellent
Summary: 4 Stars
I've watched quite a few french foreign films, and I have to say that this is one of the best quality I've seen. It's a bit stark at times, but hey, that's the french for you. The characters are well developed. The costumes are very realistic. It's not the greatest movie ever, but it will make you laugh, and keep you interested.Movie Review: Nero fiddles ...
Summary: 3 Stars
Patrice Leconte, who directed, came to Hollywood in 1996 fully expecting to win the Oscar for best foreign film with "Ridicule" but lost to a bit of fluff from the Czech Republic titled "Kolya." It was a shocking experience, he says in an interview. He and his wife ducked all the parties after the ceremony was over and returned to France on the next plane; walking around Paris, he says he felt he had a sticker on his forehead that read "loser." Did he get a raw deal in Hollywood?
Yes and no.
Yes because this is an interesting and entertaining film, far better than the ones Leconte competed against that year, well done and well acted. Judith Godreche (she's on the DVD cover) and Fanny Ardant are beautiful women who create memorable characters, while Berling and Rochefort prove why they are among France's best actors. The story itself is spot on (as the Brits say) in showing a French version of "Nero fiddled while Rome burned" -- in this case, how Louis XVI, who ascended to the throne in the middle of financial crisis, wasted time with trivia (verbal fisticuff competitions at court) when he should have been taking care of business, which led to a revolution, and the rest is history.
No because this sort of topic, despite the new angle, doesn't realy warm the hearts of Academy members. And speaking of members, it doesn't help matters to start the story with a shot of a fellow whipping out his ... member (no kidding) and urinating on a dying old man who had insulted him years ago. M. Leconte, with all due respect, this sort of thing makes you look like a bonehead in Hollywood (no pun intended). That scene should have been taken out. I'm guessing it turned people off and led to the warm and fuzzy "Kolya" getting the nod instead. More importantly, unless viewers know French well enough to get the point of the humor and the play on words, all that will be lost in translation. I am certain virtually no one in Hollywood knows (or cares) what alexandrine meter is and how hard it is to write poetry in French that follows such a pattern--the examples in the film are minor league stuff anyway; for the real thing, read Baudelaire. The verbal fisticuffs give the film a high degree of arrogance and condescension that does not go over well at all in Tinseltown.
Leconte does much better when he stays away from politics, e.g. "The Hairdresser's Husband" and "The Perfume of Yvonne." Check those out.
Movie Review: "Wit opens any door."
Summary: 3 Stars
Sometimes with movie distribution, as with humour, timing is everything. Patrice Leconte's Ridicule is a long way from the best work from almost anyone involved, yet still proved a major arthouse success outside France, picking up Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Foreign Film, winning a BAFTA as well as a nomination for the Palme D'Or at Cannes and winning four Cesars, including Best Film and Best Director, as well as another eight nominations in France itself. All of which leaves you with the suspicion that it couldn't have been up against much competition that year. It's certainly not a bad film, but at times it's almost as slight as its subject - the rules of wit and ridicule at the Court of Versailles under King Louis XVI, where you live or die by the readiness of your wit and where a single misstep can cast you into oblivion.
Charles Berling is the impoverished minor aristocrat seeking royal patronage for a drainage project to stop his peasants from dropping like flies only to discover that the only way to get near to the King in a world where wit opens any door is to demonstrate a sharper and more malicious tongue than those around him. Tutored in the rules of engagement by Jean Rochefort's friendly courtier and both championed and checked by Fanny Ardant's court predator, he briefly finds himself a sensation in a world where honesty and wit are so rarely combined, only to find himself heading for a fall.
While it's a cut above the usual dry costume drama and passes the time more than pleasantly enough, it never quite escapes the feeling of a safe and predictable morality tale while at times the wit could be sharper and the venom more prominent. There are some fine moments and Ardant gets a great screen entrance, her servants blowing powder over her naked body, but at the end of the day it manages to be a curious mixture of both a mildly satisfying diversion and slightly less than the sum of its parts. Very much like the Court of Versailles itself...
Whereas Second Sight's UK PAL DVD boasts a very good 52-minute documentary on the making of the film, Miramax's Region 1 NTSC DVD is strictly barebones with no extras, but does have a decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer.
Movie Review: Gross out warning
Summary: 2 Stars
Skip chapter one if you do not wish to see in explicit detail one man urinating on another. I found this to be extremely disgusting. You have been warned. I am surprised none of the other reviewers mentioned this.