Préparez vos mouchoirs (1978)

Director:

Bertrand Blier

Writer:

Bertrand Blier (writer)

Release Date:

17 December 1978 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Solange is depressed: she's stopped smiling, she eats little, she says less. She has fainting fits....

Plot Keywords:

Mozart | Teenager | Promiscuity | Teenage Boy | Domestic Triangle

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Gérard Depardieu	...	Raoul
Carole Laure	...	Solange
Patrick Dewaere	...	Stéphane
Michel Serrault	...	Le voisin / Neighbor
Eléonore Hirt	...	Madame Beloeil
Jean Rougerie	...	Mr. Beloeil
Sylvie Joly	...	La passante / Passerbeil
Riton Liebman	...	Christian Beloeil (as Riton)
Liliane Rovère	...	Bartender
Michel Beaune	...	Le médecin dans la rue
Roger Riffard	...	Le médecin du port
André Thorent	...	Le professeur
André Lacombe	...	Le délégué syndical
David Gabison	...	Le quidam (as Alain David Gabison)
Gilberte Géniat	...	L'ouvreuse du théâtre

Also Known As:

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (USA)
Get Your Handkerchiefs Ready

Runtime:

Argentina:106 min | USA:108 min

Country:

France | Belgium

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:X (original rating) | Argentina:18 (re-rating) | UK:15 (re-rating) (2007) (uncut) | Australia:MA | UK:18 (video rating: 1994) (cut) | UK:X | Chile:18 | France:-12 | USA:R

Company:

Belga Films

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 79th Annual Academy Awards (2007) (TV)

Offbeat Comedy About Love and Sex à la Bertrand Blier

What might seem an already risqué love triangle between two misogynous men (Depardieu and Dewaere, repeating their successful teaming of "Les Valseuses") and a pathologically passive woman (Carole Laure) develops into a REALLY unconventional love quartet when a 13 year-old boy (Riton) is thrown into the story and wins the woman's sexual and emotional favors over the grown men, and nothing turns out quite the way one would expect.

Good reasons to see this movie: A) cliché-free, offbeat satire with brilliant dialog and surprise turns everywhere (director/writer Blier's specialty is, of course, épater la bourgeoisie, e.g. "Les Valseuses", "Tenue de Soirée", "Trop Belle pour Toi"); B) young, fit, ugly-handsome Depardieu's rounded performance; C) a very different approach to love and sex in movies, unlike the usual everyday stuff; D) wonderful Michel Serrault.

Favorite sequences: the opening scene at the restaurant, in which the offbeat dialog states at once this is not "another love story" (very honest of Blier to show his cards early on); the cheese war sequence; Serrault extracting all the information he wants from Riton's mother with one single question; Riton's young mates asking him about how it feels like to make love to a woman ("Are there hairs inside?", they ask). Minor letdowns: the so-so ending; Carole Laure's rather blunt approach to her apparently blunt but wonderful role (imagine Isabelle Huppert doing it!!); Riton's utter lack of appeal (he had a physique reminiscent of Benoît Ferreux, the boy in Louis Malle's "Le Soufflé au Coeur/Murmur of the Heart", but not an ounce of his charm).

As a footnote, it's interesting to remember that this film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, which tells a lot about how much more open-minded American movie industry people were in the 1970s. Giving an Oscar to a similar film today would be unthinkable in sexually neo-prudish Hollywood of the 2000s(an adult woman falling for a 13 year-old boy WHILE being the lover of two other men!). Recommended for viewers who enjoy unconventional story-telling and, well, unconventional sexual situations spiced with a subversive sense of humor.