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Potiche Never Movie - Free Online HQ
When Robert is hospitalised after an ugly confrontation with striking workers, Suzanne has to take over the factory and to help her master the intricacies of labour politics, she calls upon an old friend and former lover, the communist mayor Maurice Babin, with whom she once enjoyed a passionate bout of al fresco sex. Babin is played by Grard Dpardieu, here looking very portly, especially compared with the svelte Deneuve,
who shows off her morning run and touch-toe exercises in a dinky little jogging outfit at the beginning of the movie. Perhaps Deneuve is too restrained to be a gay icon, but the little twinkle in her eye signals to the audience that her grandeur has to be taken with a soupon of indulgent humour. Certainly when she wears a pinny, and unloads the dishwasher in the kitchen, as she does in one scene, the moment has something of Marie Antoinette's milkmaid.
The fact that the family business produces umbrellas will of course recall Deneuve's performance in Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and although this detail comes from the original play, it is another factor which makes Deneuve really the only possible casting and adds to the sense of ancestor worship. It is impossible to watch her, especially her scenes with the hefty Dpardieu, without a smile at all the engineered absurdity.
It is, however, an absurdity carried off with great style, technique and narrative flair. Finally, Mme Pujol comes to nurse political ambitions, and there is something that might almost be called Thatcherite in her bearing, were it not that these Anglo-Saxon influences are really quite alien. You need a sweet tooth for this film, but Ozon does pastiche and style very well, and manages to bring Potiche to life more effectively than his other comparable piece, Eight Women (2001). A little over-extended, perhaps, and weighed down a little by theatrical origins, but a tremendously elegant piece of fun.
One of the most enjoyable branches of Fran?ois Ozon's film-making is his fondness for theatrical farce and borderline hysterical camp. It may come off a bit wonky in 8 Women (2002) but that film did at least introduce him to Catherine Deneuve; together they have whipped up the delightful fondant that is Potiche, loosely adapted
Potiche has proven massively popular in France, and it's easy to see why. A frothy, farcical comedy about women's empowerment staring the incomparable Catherine Deneuve and based on an already well-loved stage play, the ticket machines must have been spewing out the paper on opening night.
