Bof...Anatomie d'un livreur begins with a quotation from Paul Lafargue's Droit à l'ivresse (1848) (The Right to Be Lazy), a seminal anti-work book which inspired Moustaki to write a song of the same name praising the writer and his ideas. Moustaki of course was a friend of Albert Cossery, who shared the same views as Lafargue and embedded them in the heroes of his novels. Although La Jeune Morte (1965) is Faraldo's first made film, it wasn't in fact released so Bof can be considered as his first film. But rather more obscure even Themroc, it hasn't quite managed the cult status of the latter.
Also unlike Themroc, Bof has clearly discernable words. It begins with the nameless son (Julian Negulesco) living with his nameless mother (Marie Mergey) and father (Paul Crauchet). We see the son starting his first job for wine firm Noé, using a small delivery cart.* Often he has to climb many stairs to reach Parisian apartments, which with fifteen one-litre bottles is a great deal for anyone, and he arrives at his first customer exhausted, but not too exhausted to have sex with her.
The son later befriends a black road sweeper and on his way home catches the eye of Germaine (Marie Dubois), who responds rather tantalisingly to him but they don't have a conversation. Another day, though, she slouches in the window with her legs spread out, giving the son a few view of her underwear. He soon passes his test to drive a lorry full of wine: obviously a huge improvement. The son decides he's leaving home to live with Germaine, and his father keeps patting him on the back telling his son so many times that it's normal that it is evidently having a great effect on him: his wife is not exactly a bundle of fun.
And so we see a great change in the father, and although the viewer doesn't directly see anything, it seems reasonably clear that he kills his wife (as he later confesses to his son). And he hesitates a great deal before deciding to forget about work, so he sits by the river and throws his clocking-in card in it, visits his wife's grave and basks in the sun. He later, workless, joins his son and partner in their home, and is even allowed to have sex with Germaine, but not without a number of unspoken, embarrassed gestures which Germaine finds quite astonishing: why can't they just tell her what's wanted of her, and of course she agrees.
Soon the trio becomes a quartet when the father sees Nana (Marie-Hélène Breillat) about to pocket a dress but puts it back on the rail when she sees him looking through the window, although he enters the shop and stuffs the flimsy article in his hat. Soon too, both father and son are sleeping with Nana: it's a kind of commune anyway, isn't it?
The son continues his deliveries until he damages the lorry driving off the verge of the road, but he goes home and they all decide – with the road sweeper too – to go off to 'the south'.
This film by no means has the impact of Themroc, doesn't have a similar star-filled cast, but you can certainly see what Faraldo was working towards, see a vision of utopia in there: workless society with sexual freedom, etc. Themroc confused a number of people, and others thought Bof and Themroc a mere product of their times, but Faraldo continued to believe in these ideas up to his death in 2008.
*Claude Faraldo had a job for a number of years delivering Nicolas wine. This part of the film is in great detail, and is really difficult to watch, such are the obviously autobiographical details that Faraldo puts into the effort of the son to manage the stairs with his great load.
If the director Claude Faraldo is remembered for anything it's for the obscure Themroc (1973), an anarchist vision of the destruction of the capitalist system where consumerism rules. And to start, of course, work is very much a part of this system, in which people are defined by what they do for a living. The protagonist Themroc lives in an apartment with his elderly mother (Jeanne Herviale) and his sister (Béatrice Romand), whose naked body he gloats on while she's asleep. He goes to work as a house painter with his friend by bicycle, then bus, then métro, and walking out of the métro the narrative is frequently interrupted by shots of the events of his day so far: his thoughts as he follows the crowd.
With the exception of a few words on the screen designating the unnamed mother, sister and copain, etc. only a pretend language is spoken: sounds which resemble meaningful words are made, but have no meaning apart from the manner in which they're expressed. Did I hear 'allez' and 'nada'? No, they were no doubt purely coincidental sounds. Themroc tends to use grunting, animal-like noises of the stereotypical caveman, but then he comes to live in a kind of cave and has the strength of a horse: he can lift a car, and carry two policemen at once.
At his workplace, in Club Med 'gentil organisateur' fashion, we have 'gentil gardien' 'gentil sous directeur', and so on. Painting window frames Themroc stumbles upon a manager caressing this secretary, who then opens the window to protest but hits Themroc's nose which bleeds profusely. But when Themroc goes to the gentil directeur he's given the sack. That's when he really loses it. Returning home he builds himself into a room by cementing himself by breeze blocks he's taken from a building site, staving in the window, its frame and the wall attached to it and throws all the material objects out of it and onto the street.
His loving sister makes her way up to the room, or cave, by a rope ladder, and they have sex: Faraldo is obviously trying to break as many taboos as possible in this film. Meanwhile the neighbour opposite (Francesca Romana Coluzzi) samples Themroc's sexual goods: the revolutionary ethos is spreading. The woman lives with her rather timid partner (Coluche in a tie, holding onto a treasured ornament) and their daughter(?) played by the thumb-sucking Miou-Miou. Before long they too have a no wall and all their material possessions (apart from the precious ornament) are out in the street.
The noise of course attracts the police, who try to climb the rope ladder but are knocked back by Themroc, then they try to smoke them out but don't succeed. A mason (Patrick Dewaere) tries to fill in the hole where there's no wall, but Themroc gently plays with him as he works, and with his sister they take his shirt off and stroke his body, until in the end they lure him in, he's won over to the revolutionary cause and knocks his work down again.
Themroc avoids an encounter with the police by sneaking out at night, drinking gutter water rather like an animal (why bother with the trappings of civilisation?) and bags two cops, leading to the female neighbour opposite to call him 'Rockthem'. Both families feast on the flesh of the police, of course.
And the whole business ends in glorious chaos, another neighbour smashing his car, his pride and joy that he's been polishing throughout the film. It seems the whole street almost is won over to animal anarchy as they listen enraptured to the orgasmic wails and howls from Themroc's cave, the Miou-Miou character still sucking her thumb and probably masturbating.
Only ten days have passed this year, but I think it'll be a while before I see a more devastating film than this. And I'll certainly never forget it.
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