"8 Women": A French-Fried Musical

The French, as we know, are in love with old American cinema. They adore Hitchcock thrillers; they adore female-centric social comedies with couture by Edith Head; they adore what they’ve helpfully named film noir; they adore old MGM musicals. That’s why it has somehow occurred to them to combine all these genres into what Wikipedia calls “a 2002 jukebox musical comedy mystery film.” Based on a 1958 stage play, 8 Femmes (or, in English, 8 Women) is a mildly amusing entertainment that features some of France’s greatest female film stars: everyone from the still-gorgeous Catherine Deneuve to the hyper-sexy Fanny Ardent to the much-admired Isabelle Huppert to the now-octogenarian Danielle Darrieux, along with several attractive younger players.

 The set-up is familiar from many old plays and movies of this type. We’re in the great room of a large country home, where a wealthy family and its retainers are all preparing for a snowy Christmas Eve celebration. Deneuve, the lady of the house, has just arrived home with her vivacious elder daughter, newly back from college. There to greet her are the wheelchair-bound family matriarch (Darrieux), Deneuve’s neurotic sister (Huppert), and Deneuve’s plain-jane younger daughter, along with the family cook and a sexy chambermaid (Emmanuelle Béart) whom no one seems to trust. Because this is a musical, mother and daughters quickly launch into a satiric song about their homelife, "Papa t'es plus dans le coup" ("Dad, You're Out of Touch")

 But where is the pater familias about whom they sing? Upstairs in his bedchamber, with a knife in his back. Suddenly we’re in a whodunit, with everyone apparently having a motive to murder the wealthy but not exactly virtuous man. An additional suspect eventually shows up: Ardent as the victim’s sultry (and financially needy) sister. That makes eight women altogether: they all have their secrets, which get more and more lurid, and they all have musical numbers to perform, leading up to the elderly Darrieux’s solo rendition of the lugubrious “Il n’y a pas amour heureux” (“There is no happy love.”)  Eventually, the not-very-interesting mystery of Marcel’s death is solved, and we can all go home.

 I’ve read that François Ozon, who both wrote and directed this film, originally wanted to do a French remake of George Cukor’s 1939 all-female The Women, though legal issues got in the way.. Alas, the catty wit of the Cukor original (adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin from the play by Claire Boothe Luce) seems to be missing here, along with The Women’s ultra-sharp delineation of social mores. And the determination to make this movie into both a murder mystery and a musical leads to a failure on both counts.

 Though I personally love musicals, I’m honestly not sure why the French are so keen to embrace them. They did have one genuine musical hit, Jacques Demy’s 1964 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which could hardly be mistaken for a Hollywood musical comedy. It’s a beautiful film, with gorgeous art direction and a lovely score by Michel Legrand, but there’s absolutely nothing comic about this story of love and loss. Three years later, Demy tried for a lighter tone in another musical, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort), which again stars Deneuve, along with her sister Françoise Dorléac, and even finds a place for George Chakiris and Gene Kelly. For years I wanted to see this film, but when I finally did I was sadly disappointed. It’s flat and inconsequential: no fizz, no real joy. Much like that strange hybrid, 8 Femmes. 

 

Ticking Clock

Foreign language films don’t mean nearly as much to me now as they did during my college years. Back in the late Sixties, when we Baby Boomers were coming into our own, foreign films opened windows onto another world: a place more complex, more vibrant, and far more sensual than anything I knew at home.

The queen of art films in that era was probably Catherine Deneuve, whose cool blonde beauty seemed to mask a tortured soul. In Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, she played a virgin whose mental stability is eaten away by repressed carnal desire. Her role in Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour turned her into a chic Parisian trophy wife who comes alive in moments of sexual degradation. So beautiful was she, and so powerful was this film, that a devout Mormon I know has been carrying around memories of Belle de Jour for the past forty years.

Back then, he was a young missionary in Japan. On a day off, he and an American buddy went to a local theatre to see Lady and the Tramp. When that Disney charmer faded out, the projectionist began screening Belle de Jour. (I can attest that the Japanese in that era came up with some pretty odd double-bills.) Though the Buñuel film was in French with Japanese subtitles, it was quickly obvious to the two Mormons that Belle de Jour was not in line with the teachings of their faith. My friend now admits, “I don’t think we were very far into that movie when we realized this was not something we probably should have been doing, but neither of us had the courage—or maybe the desire—to get up and walk out.” The experience taught him that Church elders were right to warn about the staying power of movies: Belle de Jour has remained fresh his mind from that day to this.

But for most of us, time doesn’t stand still. This is especially true of actors. I just saw Catherine Deneuve’s latest film, Potiche. Once again she plays a trophy wife, but this is a comedy (albeit a rather lame one) in which she turns the tables on her philandering husband. Despite the silliness of the goings-on, Deneuve is still beautiful, with a regal quality that transcends her material. I must admit she’s become a bit chubby, though at sixty-eight she’s certainly entitled to pack on a few pounds. (Who hasn’t?) Her love interest in the film is Gérard Depardieu, who may once have been swashbuckling but has now got so much swash that I’m not sure it’s buckle-able. Let’s be honest: he resembles the Michelin tire man with a Dutch-boy bob. It’s enough to make me really miss the films of the past, when the stars—and I—were a whole lot younger