11 November 2019

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Foutaises (1990)

Foutaises, meaning something of little or no importance or use, 'stars' Dominique Pinon simply listing his likes and dislikes. For instance, he likes opening a book after his holidays and finding sand betweens the leaves; putting his socks on; leaving for holidays (although the holidays themselves are unmentioned); the Bois de Boulogne on bank holidays; taking escalators the wrong way, etc, etc. But he hates butchers' stalls; pulling out nose hairs (with tweezers); leaving a single pea on his plate; bearded men without mustaches; dead Christmas trees in January; the end of television programmes, etc. This eight-minute film is obviously a series of lists, as underlined early on in the shot of the open pages of Georges Perec's Je me souviens, in which he lists things he remembers.

There's something of Asperger's syndrome here (which of course we all have to a certain extent), but most of all there are some embryonic opening scenes of Jeunet's Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain.

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