One of the Cannes Film Festival’s less well-known sidebar events is Acid, a programme of films for young people. This year, it showcased the black comedy, Gaz de France (France is a Gas) about a fictitious French President Bird (Philippe Katerine), who made his name singing (geddit) who flounders during a live television discussion. Asked by a thirty-eight year old unemployed single mother what he can do for her, he sings his reply, ‘I don’t know.’
With his popularity rock bottom, his special advisor, Michel Battement (Antoine Gouy) – the surname means ‘flapping’ in English - gathers together a motley group of people – not so much a think tank as a stink tank - to come up with ideas for Bird to re-connect with his public. Walk from one end of France to the other, suggests one. Be self-deprecatory, says another. Fall in love, says a third. The decision is made for him to declare his love for a ten year old girl, a lobbyist for children. Meanwhile the humanoid Indian-looking super computer P T Pithy whirs slowly into life, with the promise of having all the answers.
The problem with the film is the pacing. It’s too darned long. The jokes are spaced out with tedious exchanges involving caricatures. The film is entirely set-bound – there are no exteriors. The think tank starts their discussion in level minus one of the Presidential Palace (nice board room, but a bit too much for seven people), but is moved to level minus two, where all the Presidential bric-a-brac and discarded photos are kept by a company using the space for a promotion. Then when the anti-Birds break into the Palace, they move to level minus three, which has a simulated sunset view and a limited amount of ham.
President Bird proposes that he pretend to be dead and live out of sight. The tension is whether he will deliver a speech that portrays himself as a paedophile. It turns out President Bird has one idea that will endear him to the public, taking a statement that we’re familiar with all too literally.
The direction by Benoît Forgeard, who co-wrote the script with Emmanuel Lautréaumont, is fairly static, though there is a neat visual joke shot from above when the thinkers divide into pairs, a large table breaking up into smaller mini tables. One of the thinkers is the ex-girlfriend of a Presidential advisor. He spends a lot of time frustrated that she doesn’t remember him. The film is similarly unmemorable; I’m not sure I’ll recall it in two years either.
What was striking about the packed screening I attended with the absence of laughter from a capacity crowd - but only two walk-outs, which wasn’t bad! Part of the problem is that the first gag is so timid – Bird’s faux pas – that the audience settled into a mode of attentive silence. For a film with Gaz in the title, it was as if the director had struggled to switch on the pilot light. Change to electric, it’s easier.
Reviewed at Arcades 1, Cannes, Sunday 17 May 2015, 20:00 seance
