Classy Film: Neuf Mois Ferme (Nine Month Stretch) If Hollywood remakes Albert Dupontel’s secon

Classy Film: Neuf Mois Ferme (Nine Month Stretch) If Hollywood remakes Albert Dupontel’s second movie Neuf Mois Ferme, as Jonathan Holland at The Hollywood Reporter suggested it might, it will be about redemption and the importance of the nuclear family. This being a French movie however, the characters’ evolution isn’t as clear-cut; the moral aspect is less prevalent. The focus is on Ariane Felder (Sandrine Kimberlain), an ambitious Parisian judge, as she learns to deal with the unknown rather than on her one-night-stand, and the convict and burglar Bob Nolan (Albert Dupontel), being reformed. A few months after an inebriated New Year’s celebration with fellow legal professionals at the Palais de Justice de Paris, Felder realises she is pregnant. Calling upon her contacts, she manages to piece the night together, mostly thanks to footage from CCTV cameras, which results in one of the funniest sequences in Neuf Mois Ferme.  Her shock to learn Nolan is the father is superseded by her discovery that he is the main suspect in the butchering of an old man during a burglary gone wrong. He’s even thought to have eaten his eyes! Not exactly father material for a woman who didn’t want offspring in the first place and, as a judge, would have attended one of France’s most prestigious schools. Built like a play, thanks to three clear acts and limited locations (mainly the Palais de Justice and Ariane’s flat), Neuf Mois Ferme relies on tried and tested comic recipes, so much so that it reminded me of my high school literature classes on the topic. The five comic types are a key part of the French curriculum: le comique de mots, based on deformed speech, jokes and word play; le comique de gestes, based on humorous gestures; le comique de situation, when the most unlikely people meet; satire and le comique de répétition, when something happens again and again. They were a large part of my school life as, aged 12 to 17, I made my way through Molière play after Molière play. A quick search online suggests it isn’t as big a deal in the English curriculum. Not so much comedy in Shakespeare, I guess. Nolan’s lawyer, Maître Trolos (Nicolas Marié), suffering from a speech impediment and naivety, is the language-based comic. Juge de Bernard, (Philippe Uchan), Felder’s colleague with a crush on her, is there for comique de répétition: as she suspects him of being the father, she takes him to play golf where, to get enough tissues for a DNA analysis, she hits him with a club. This is the first of a series of scenes where Bernard is hit on the head by various and more and more symbolic objects. I saw Neuf Mois Ferme as part of the Rendez-vous with French cinema festival. No word so far on a UK-wide release, with good reason: I am not sure how the comic effects translate in subtitles. Also, the movie relies on understanding the French justice system, which differs from its British and American counterparts, especially in the role of the judge who oversees investigations, and there were moments when only the French moviegoers laughed. However, the success of TV series like Spiral suggests that this isn’t impossible to overcome.   Despite building his movies on traditional comic formats, Dupontel avoids being too academic thanks to the dark humour and the themes he infuses into the drama. Upon realising she is six months pregnant, Felder tries to self-abort by throwing herself off a chair she’s perched on her desk. The scene starts with a ruling delivered in traditional judicial verbosity. Judicial vocabulary is at the core of most the Kimberlain-Dupontel dialogues, and the resulting laughs demonstrate once again both actors’ comedy chops. Kimberlain, who I had last seen in a much darker role in Polisse, playing a well-off mother who realises her husband is abusing his daughter, and before that in comedy Pauline Détective, shows that she has a superb comic timing. Her delivery and the very osées scenes Dupontel had her play gained her a second César award earlier this year - a well-earned one too. A complimentary ticket to Neuf Mois Ferme was provided to me by Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. -- source link

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