Blu Review: My Afternoons with Margueritte (2010)

January 22, 2013 Blu Review, Home Video 1 Comments

Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Gisèle Casadesus, Maurane
Director: Jean Becker
Country: France
Genre: Comedy | Drama
Official Trailer: Here

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0

Editor’s Notes: My Afternoons with Margueritte released on Blu Ray from New Video Group on June 19th, 2012.

Gerard Depardieu plays Germain Chavez who is a handyman, gardening illiterate who is mocked by the village for his stupidity, even by those that are supposed to be his friends. One day in the park he sits on a bench next a little old woman named Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus) who both have a common interest in the pigeons that congregate in that area of the park. In this, a friendship blossoms in the most rare and random of circumstances. Margueritte is a book worm who rifles through books and books for the lovely lyrical sound of literature and linguistics which she then tries to handover to Germain. An illiterate cannot have the love of literature that she does making her his teacher for the rest of the film, teaching him the lovely French language and pushing him into trying something that his past has scarred him too much to attempt.

…a friendship blossoms in the most rare and random of circumstances.

Germain is a gentle giant who is only seen as an oaf by all except his girlfriend. His mother is horrible to him, putting him down his entire life as a mistake she never wanted and a burden bestowed upon her forever which she bereaves and forsakes his presence. Although he still loves his mother, it’s hard to see why you could love someone who is so damaging, but then a lot of people stay in abusive situations. It’s a problem he doesn’t even seem to recognize while blissfully living his life in sheer ignorance yet content with it. Only is it until he is pushed he realizes that the mocking of others gets to him and the sense of accomplishment he gets when rattling off Camus to his friends; a feeling that will soon urge him to push himself.

He’s a happy man, a simple man, a damaged man, a content man; Margueritte has a striking influence on his life pushing him from being content to stopping the mocking around him, to be more than he ever really thought he ever could. Wanting to etch his legacy into a statue by every day writing his name in pen on it as he feels he deserves a place there - although it turns out he may have misread it. It’s a gloriously happy, uplifting film that is perfectly inoffensive and adequate viewing for all. It’s pushed along to breaking point with its cheeriness that is its brightly colored world.

…Becker’s delicate hands keeps this on the happy side instead of the cliché and it achieves everything it can - some films have a maximum potential and this reaches its.

Jean Becker stretches the material out to its very thinnest and one tiny tug would tear it and ruin it. Luckily Becker’s delicate hands keeps this on the happy side instead of the cliché and it achieves everything it can - some films have a maximum potential and this reaches its. It avoids falling into an over serious melodrama, exploring the world of abuse, instead it touches on it as a reason to love Germain, the reason his current state is so fractious. It lends a hand to caring instead of focusing on the problem abuse creates to dampen the mood. It’s a light-hearted film with a joie de vivre that echoes the characters within it. Lovingly directed film about love, learning and a lesson that it’s never too late. Smiling is its purpose even though it may not seem like it at first.

62/100 ~ OK. Jean Becker stretches the material out to its very thinnest and one tiny tug would tear it and ruin it. Luckily Becker’s delicate hands keeps this on the happy side instead of the cliché and it achieves everything it can - some films have a maximum potential and this reaches its.