Last night's film was that rare event - a film that was seen totally unexpectedly without previews or expectations. Le Pere Noel est une Ordure (Father Christmas is a Shit) - apologs for the lack of accents but the Word trick of CTRL-\ e doesn't work in Blogger.

From a quick surf on IMDb it seems to be a big cult hit with the French of a certain age - it was released in 1982 and wasn't an immediate success so I guess it came about from TV showings in the mid-80s. From the small number of comments (in English quand meme), only one wasn't from France but from the Netherlands, so I guess this isn't so big amongst the Anglophone world. The DVD had American English subtitles, so I guess this may be the first real attempt at attracting Anglophones.

Basically it looks like a standard French farce on the surface and as I watched I was really reading the film on this level. The closest relationship in British cinema I could make is the Carry On series - farcical but popular and cultish beyond the series' limitations. Like Le Pere Noel, some of the catchphrases in Carry On have become part of the UK English language, especially the Kenneth Williamses. Well that's fine, and the film was enjoyable at this level - verbal and visual gags delivered in a mannered and slightly hysterical manner. I especially enjoyed the Bulgarian neighbour and his succession of ever more disgusting cakes, and some of the one-liners were delivered impeccably.

The bonus disk contained one of the more bizarre extras I've ever seen - entitled Karaoke, it consists of key sequences with one of the actor's voices dubbed out and a ticker tape showing their script at the bottom of the screen, so you can play along with the part! The problem was the script was handwritten (maybe the origianals as the actors wrote all their own dialogue?) and moved quite fast so I couldn't read anything! Perhaps this was due to watching the film on a Mac PowerBook's TFT screen?

Towards the end of the film I began to feel there was something more there - especially as the narrative takes a very dark turn in the latter half. Then it came to me that rather than Carry On the movie was moving into League of Gentlemen territory - and this chimes in nicely with what I have read this morning about the cult status of Le Pere Noel. What starts as farce decends into horror, and all the characters become ever more exaggerated characatures.

I'm sure as my French improves I'll get more out of the film - the subtitles used way to much American English slang, and occasionally I could pick up stuff that were omitted in the subtitling. It's a film I definitely want to revisit sometime. And on a carspottery level it was nice and nostalgic to see the streets of Paris full of 70s Renaults!