I have a lot of respect and appreciation for French comedies, because the French have already shown that they have a sense of humor and know how to make people laugh in the comedies they make. So it was with "Taxi" in 1998, and much more recently with "Intouchables". And now, by mere chance, I stumbled upon this delightful film, where a friendly Algerian farmer seeks to fulfill an old dream: to go to Paris, with his dear Tarentaise cow named Jacquelline, and present her at the French Agricultural Fair. The film is nothing original, it is not a masterpiece, nor was it made with the idea of becoming one. It is, above all, a good piece of entertainment.
It is a film that very happily mixes the almost childlike naivety of an innocent dream with a very tasteful, intelligent comedy, sometimes with slight touches of irony, very suitable for a family evening and that promises to please everyone, or almost all. The director, Mohamed Hamidi, knew how to give the characters (and particularly the protagonist) strength and sympathy, developing them properly and without wasting much time. The protagonist is very pleasant, friendly, and it is impossible not to like him, and his cow, apparently sweet and expressive. In between, other characters emerge, such as the protagonist's wife, the wealthy and haughty rival, a penniless aristocrat with a generous heart, and the brother-in-law who has been living in France for a few years.
Fatsah Bouyahmed deserves a round of applause for the way he played her character. He gave Fatah a kindness and naïveté that are almost hard to believe, but that we like to feel in people who are really good. Lambert Wilson is also not far behind, with a very convincing and sympathetic interpretation of an educated and well-born man, but on whom luck has not smiled, and which shows quite well the difficulties through which the families of the old European nobility have passed, with the loss of privileges and the increasingly costly maintenance of their former family estates. The Moroccan Hajar Masdouki was also very good in his role. I confess that I found the relationship between the characters strange, as husband and wife, but being a very different culture from ours, I am willing to consider the strangeness I felt as a result of this "culture shock". I didn't like so much Jamel Debbouze and his character. I think, along with Abdellah Chakiri's, they are the most unsympathetic characters here, but Debbouze's was really poorly developed.
Technically, the film is regular and effective. It doesn't have great effects or sets, but makes good use of the filming locations in France (although the film is set between France and Algeria). The cinematography is regular, but it works really well and the jokes are good, they're smart, they're very younger-appropriate. I especially liked a situation in which the main character ends up being induced to drink alcohol and makes some mistakes, which gives us an interesting and prophylactic message about the dangers of consuming these drinks. The camera work was good, the editing is adequate, and the pacing of the film is delightful. If there's one thing I didn't particularly like, it was the ending... I felt that the film ends suddenly and too quickly, and that there's a lack of a sequence that concludes the film more smoothly: the scenes of the character's return home could have been used. In that sense, rather than being included in the end credits.
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