[CRITICAL] IN MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE

IN MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE was presented the first public screening at the International Film Festival in the Médoc , which was held last July. The director Christian Carion, which has in particular the Farewell and Merry Christmas was present. Inspired by the exodus lived by his own family in May of 1940, he wanted to pay homage to these millions of people who are found on the roads with a strong sense of abandonment and on the other hand, the German people first victim of nazism.

It boasts the fact of having written the screenplay as a western choral, turned in large spaces, combining several small stories within the big Story, accompanied by music by the great Ennio Morricone. And actually, some of the images and lengths of the film to offer a true showcase for his music!

We will follow therefore the destinies of several characters : Hans (August Diehl), resistant German widower who flees France with his young son Max (Joshio Marlon) and comes to work in the farm of Paul (Olivier Gourmet), the mayor of the small village The Bucquière near Arras. We will meet Mado (Mathilde Seigner), the wife of Paul, Suzanne (Alice Isaaz), the beautiful schoolteacher, Albert (Laurent Gerra) and Roger (Jacques Bonnaffé), two farmers of the vintage.

Hans, arrested and then released thanks to the Scottish captain Percy (Matthew Rhys) during the German invasion, goes in search of Max, who has taken the route of the exodus under the wing of Suzanne with the other villagers.

Thanks to the reconstructions true to the period as chaotic and fuzzy, we feel the fear the characters, their disappointments, their anger, their rivalries. We imagine without difficulty what have had to face the French in 1940 : the separation of families, the messages left on the walls or the tables in class, the bombardments, the death, unjust and violent. References to the trauma of the war of 14-18, via the cemeteries are also very present. The exodus, thatAndré Téchiné had already filmed in The Lost and that the poster, like the one in the film by Christian Carion, is also dotted with fields of wheat crossed by the victims.

“Too much try to describe the events, the film moves away from the emotion and is akin to a documentary or educational purpose.”

“In a film, as in a cooking recipe, the developer mixture of the ingredients, but in the end, these are the spectators who get to sample the film,” says Christian Carion. The intentions and the educational vocation of IN MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE , are certainly very commendable. How in fact does not adhere to the necessity of making known this period to the young generation ? The problem is that it’s hard to find the taste of all ingredients mixed together and that the recipe does not. It never comes completely in these stories are multiple and so little credible reunion of the father and of the son, after many fantastic adventures, of implausibilities and if big strings ! Of course it is film, but we feel deceived by the result.

And this is where all the paradox of the film. Too well want to describe the events and pay tribute to the testimonies that have fed his script, the film moves away from fiction and emotion and is akin in some ways to a documentary. Any show can sometimes serve the original idea, as when Hans ensures that the corpse of a child is not that of his son, a scene that some will find unbearable. His film would have gained in intensity if he had more suggested, as when Suzanne discovers the family killed at the side of the road: in this scene, we feel more the horror of the situation through his eyes when the camera lingers, such a witness, on the corpses.

August Diehl, that we had met in Inglorious Basterd and Olivier Gourmet, we, however, preferred in The Smell of the Tangerine are impeccable in their roles. Alice Isaaz, seen recently in A moment of delusion, is still as bright with a gaze vector of very fine moments of emotion. Matthew Rhys, known especially for his role in the series The Americans, and Laurent Gerra surjouent a little too much to the shots of the Scots and the French.