Jacques Rozier's Maine Océan (1986)

This is not so much a film as a runaway train, so it's entirely fitting that parts of it occur on trains. On the 'Maine Océan' an exotic Brazilian dancer Dejanira (Rosa-Maria Gomes) has hardly any French, so in yet another of Jacques Rozier's exercises with language as non-communication, ticket inspectors Le Gallec (Bernard Ménez) and Lucien Pontoiseau (Luis Rego) – both clearly smitten by Dejanira's charms – struggle in a few words in French and a few in English to explain to her that her ticket is invalid because she hasn't had it composté: stamped. And then we have French lawyer Mimi De Saint Marc (Lydia Feld) intervene and try to sort the situation out with her limited Portuguese. Both Mimi and Dejanira almost instantly become bosom friends.

The two stop off in Angers as Mimi has to attend court and try to defend her client Marcel Petitgas (Yves Afonso), a fisherman accused of assaulting a bourgeois man in a supposed 'road rage' attack. Mimi again launches into a long, eloquent but meaningless so totally irrelevant discourse – obviously Rozier attacking the confusion which is language as well as the legal profession in general – but Lucien (being working class therefore a born loser (class is also a preoccupation of Rozier)) is given a suspended sentence and has to pay (not insignificant but not huge) costs in compensation: Mimi's incomprehensible words certainly have done some good.

Marcel too is in love with Dejanira and tells the lawyer and the dancer that they must visit L'Île d'Yeu (where he's from, and his accent is almost impossible to understand) – incidentally Éric Chevillard's childhood holiday home was in L'Île d'Yeu: irrelevant of course, but since we're talking absurdity.... And everyone (including the ticket inspectors) joins up there. There's an amazing dance and music session: why? You don't ask such stupid questions about Rozier's films, with Dejanira wriggling about almost naked.

Impresario Pedro De La Moccorra (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.) is controlling the impromptu session and tells Le Gallec that he could be the new Maurice Chevalier: time for Le Gallec to think of life change and think of the bright lights of the Big Apple. Unfortunately Le Gallec is thrown off the plane as it's leaving and about the last thirty minutes are spent in watching him hitch lifts on boats back, wading through the water to get to the road where he hitches his way back to get to work on time. As I said,  you don't ask questions.

Some fans of Rozier's rate this above Du côté d'Orouët, and I can understand the reasoning.

Jacques Rozier's Les Naufragés de l’île de la Tortue | The Castaways of Turtle Island (1976)

This is not Jacques Rozier's best film, but like all the films he made it is very amusing, absurd and never dull. Needless to say, there are many swerves in the plot, and it is frequently impossible to say what material here is in the original script and how much improvised. Jean-Arthur Bonaventure (Pierre Richard) works in a travel agency and with his colleague 'Nono' (Maurice Risch) he concocts a scheme – approved by the general manager of the company – for a money-saving holiday which involves sending people on holiday to an exotic location where they have to fend for themselves in Robinson Crusoe fashion.

Jean-Arthur goes out not with Nono but his brother Petit Nono (the irrestistable Jacques Villeret), and no sooner have they (half-)finished their research at the destination and (sort of but not really) found what they think is a suitable destination then the first tourists start arriving. From the airport the tourists go with the guide on a regulation coach which is at one point invaded by a crowd of locals, but eventually the bus breaks down.

This means the group have to make their way on foot, but as it's night they sleep outside a deserted house. Then, painstakingly, they have to carry their luggage through the bush before they find a ship to the island. Needless to say, the 'holiday' is a total disaster and Jean-Arthur even finds himself in the local jail for eating bananas he can't pay for.

Jacques Rozier's Adieu Philippine (1960)

Adieu Philippine is Rozier's first feature and has some clear resemblances to Du côté d'Orouët – the celebration of youth, music, giggling girls, etc, and is also a rare instance of the Algerian war being mentioned. The title is a 'secret' coded reference to the two starring girls – Juliette (Stefania Sabatini) and Liliane (Yveline Céry) – deciding which is the one to go out with television worker Michel (Jean-Claude Aimini).

Michel decides to go to Corsica and is surprised that the girls have followed him, which is another excuse for more frivolity and camping in the mountains before he has to return to the mainland to begin his military service in Algeria.

Jacques Rozier's Comment devenir cinéaste sans se prendre la tête (1995)

A short. So young Agathe (Eloïse Charretier) wants to be a film maker but her parents think she's crazy. Her family get Lucien (Roger Trapp) to have a word with her, as he's been involved with films, and he can only tell her how long it takes to get to know the business. And then he introduces her to the (real) director Jean-Christophe Averty, who can only describe movie making in an Ubuesque, 'pataphysical way.

Jacques Rozier's Paparazzi (1964)

A short. Paparazzi concerns the relationship between Brigitte Bardot and the photographers who hounded her on the island of Capri during the making of Godard's film Le Mépris at writer Curzio Malaparte's Casa Malaparte, designed by Adalberto Libera. The paparazzi complain that they can't earn a living, although Bardot is in effect being victimised for being a star. The paparazzi are seen to take insane measures to obtain photos.

Jacques Rozier's Marketing Mix (1979)

A short. Jean-Yves Maginot (Bernard Ménez), who says he's come direct from the Harvard Business School – but surely not the one in Boston? – has been hired at a company as a sales representative, with the aim of going right to the top. From the beginning, when he bumps his car door on a colleague's in the car park, we can see that this is an ambitious idiot, but then this is a Rozier film with him in it. His language used in a letter a secretary takes shorthand from is treated with derision by everyone: he wants to write in an elaborate, pretentious style using multi-syllables. And then there's another scene in which a shorthand typist comes into an office to join the worthy suited and booted in a yellow tee-shirt bearing a huge Mickey Mouse head. It's just the wonderful Rozier!

Jacques Rozier's Du côté d'Orouët (1973)

If there are similarities beween this film and the Czech film Daisies (minus the political satire) and Rohmer's beach films (without the endless discussions), this film is out there on its own: a hymn to the craziness of youth, to forgetting about the cares of work in Paris, to being stupid for the sake of being stupid, and finding everything hilariously funny: they're in their late teens or early twenties, and they'll never be there again.
Yes, this is a film de vacances, but unlike, say, the early films of Patrice Leconte, where sexual frolics and innuendos were the order of the day. This is Joëlle (Danièle Croisy) going to Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie in La Vendée, escaping (she thinks) from the typing pool and its boss Gilbert (Bernard Ménoz) with her mates Kareen (Françoise Guégan) and Caroline (Caroline Cartier) to her grandmother's old house at the side of the sea, where she used to go as a young child.
Everything is wildly amusing: they wear chamberpots on their heads, they clomp about in grannie's old clogs, they howl and scream with laughter, they yell with horror at the live eels an old fisherman has given them, they discuss slimming and gorge themselves with chocolate. And then they bump into Gilbert, who knows that Joëlle is going there, and he's driven there with his tent, pitched at a campsite and – huge joke – he's no idea how to pronounce Orouët!
It might seem that the presence of Gilbert has put the damper on things, but not at all: he seeks shelter one stormy night when his tent can't take it anymore, and although they won't allow him to sleep in the house they allow him to pitch his tent in the sheltered side of the house: time to have fun and wake him up early in the morning with shouts and trumpet sounds. They can still have childish fun.
Anyone who finds this two-and-a-half-hour film long and tedious has never lived: the improvisation, as opposed to the elaborate planning and fascist control of the director, rules here. Rozier delights in the embarrassing silences, in what the actors do with them.
Sheer, unadulterated delight.