Jean-François Stévenin's Double messieurs (1986)

Although – partly because – this film is crazy, it's also brilliant, but then the same can easily be said of all three of the films that Jean-François Stévenin directed. After the (relevant) pre-credit photo montage, we see married businessman François (Jean-François Stévenin), aged forty, on a plane from Bordeaux back to Paris, where he's reminded of his schoolfriend Roger (Yves Afonso). And François has to join him, renew acquaintance with their summer school times spent in the Jura.

François does some detective work and – seeking his friend's whereabouts – meets his greengrocer brother who is hopping mad about his brother's behaviour: at forty, he still behaves like a schoolkid, living with his mother, calling himself Léo instead of Roger, being a stuntman for Belmondo and not having a proper job, he's 'le roi de la pince'. But meeting up with Léo partly brings back the adolescent in François, who is amazed to find memorabilia of their early days still treasured by Léo after twenty-five years, such as the time they used to play tricks on 'Le Kuntch', a third member of their gang. Léo says they must go and see him, play another trick on him, as if time has stood still and they only knew him yesterday. As if you can live in two times simultaneously, which Léo certainly does, although François is sceptical: well, isn't it a little late in life to be playing les 400 coups?

We never in fact see Le Kuntch, although he's now a property developer and when they get to his luxurious home he's not there. But Léo knows what to do: they let themselves in via a partly open picture window by the swimming pool. The place seems empty, but they help themselves to drinks until Hélène (Carole Bouquet) – Le Kuntch's wife – arrives and, well, they kidnap her, using a car belonging to Le Kuntch. This means they're now in the abduction and car stealing business, but is this important? If you're fifteen maybe this can just about be passed off as a juvenile gag, but...

But the viewer will find slight echoes of the craziness of other film directors here, such as Truffaut, Rozier, Blier, and probably many others. Although this is pure Stévenin at the same time: it's the characters' reactions to situations they're in which are more important than the situations themselves, for instance. As regards time, although Le Kuntch is stuck in the present and mainly interested in the money he's making and doesn't want to see his old friends, what is that huge blow-up of the photo taken of him having a prank played on him doing taking pride of place in his villa? Oh, it's just the imagination of Léo and François working on overdrive, it's a state of mind (or time) rather than a present-day reality.

All three of Jean-François Stévenin's films are now classic cult films – as are some of the films he didn't direct but just starred in, such as Patrick Bouchitey's insane Lune froide (1991) – although this is probably the hardest to understand, it needs more than one viewing, and it's not a place to easily understand his genius if this is your first taste of him.