"Tchao Pantin "does not bear the scars of the French cinema of the eighties ;not flashy, no intrusive music :Charlélie Couture's score is somber, often threatening ,but never drowns the actors out.
This is a night movie ; never the sun shines on this drab suburbian area ; Coluche's gas station is a dead-end ,or worse a tomb , for he tells us so ,he's been thru it all and all he's waiting for death ;"I'm already dead " he repeats several time,par excellence the loser through and through ;It's by far ,Coluche 's best part and behind a grumpy face ,he conceals his despair, his misogyny ,his hatred for the whole humanity ."I 've never spoken to anyone for five years ,says he ,to Bensoussan ,the young dealer with whom he becomes friends (Claude Berri is good at directing an odd pair : it was already obvious in "le vieil homme et l'enfant " (1966)');Richard Anconina with his hangdog looks was the revelation of the movie and has perhaps never found another part as endearing as this one. The rapport both men have is extraordinary and the first part is close to perfect.
Because of the disappearance of Bensoussan ,halfway through , the second part is not as appealing ; it suffers from a weak female part (Agnès Soral) as a cardboard punk whose motives are not really convincing and who sometimes has a tendency to overplay ...Even as a dispenser of justice , a man who takes the law in his own hands ,which is questionable, Coluche wins the audience over all the same ;and fortunately , if Soral is disappointing , on the other hand , Philippe Léotard makes his three scenes count : a wistful cop, he's a brilliant counterpart for the principal ,without any overplaying.
The second part explains why this pitiful petrol station man has become an alcoholic human wreck,living on rum :first a simple photograph ,then the room nobody can enter ; perhaps Bensoussan would have been .....
Far from the flashiness of the French eighties ,"tchao Pantin" is actually close to the pessimism of the Realisme Poétique school .
This is a night movie ; never the sun shines on this drab suburbian area ; Coluche's gas station is a dead-end ,or worse a tomb , for he tells us so ,he's been thru it all and all he's waiting for death ;"I'm already dead " he repeats several time,par excellence the loser through and through ;It's by far ,Coluche 's best part and behind a grumpy face ,he conceals his despair, his misogyny ,his hatred for the whole humanity ."I 've never spoken to anyone for five years ,says he ,to Bensoussan ,the young dealer with whom he becomes friends (Claude Berri is good at directing an odd pair : it was already obvious in "le vieil homme et l'enfant " (1966)');Richard Anconina with his hangdog looks was the revelation of the movie and has perhaps never found another part as endearing as this one. The rapport both men have is extraordinary and the first part is close to perfect.
Because of the disappearance of Bensoussan ,halfway through , the second part is not as appealing ; it suffers from a weak female part (Agnès Soral) as a cardboard punk whose motives are not really convincing and who sometimes has a tendency to overplay ...Even as a dispenser of justice , a man who takes the law in his own hands ,which is questionable, Coluche wins the audience over all the same ;and fortunately , if Soral is disappointing , on the other hand , Philippe Léotard makes his three scenes count : a wistful cop, he's a brilliant counterpart for the principal ,without any overplaying.
The second part explains why this pitiful petrol station man has become an alcoholic human wreck,living on rum :first a simple photograph ,then the room nobody can enter ; perhaps Bensoussan would have been .....
Far from the flashiness of the French eighties ,"tchao Pantin" is actually close to the pessimism of the Realisme Poétique school .