J'aimerais pas crever un dimanche (1998)

Ben works in a morgue. Ben's wife left him and he is into various kinds of alternative sexuality. Teresa dies of an ecstasy overdose on the dance floor. When she is brought to the morgue, ... See full summary »

Director:

Didier Le Pêcheur

Writer:

Didier Le Pêcheur

Stars:

Élodie Bouchez, Jean-Marc Barr, Martin Petit-Guyot

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Élodie Bouchez	...	Térésa
Jean-Marc Barr	...	Ben
Martin Petit-Guyot	...	Ducon
Patrick Catalifo	...	Boris
Gérard Loussine	...	Abel
Jean-Michel Fête	...	Nico, man with AIDS
Zazie	...	Jeanne / Hélène
Jeanne Casilas	...	Marie
Florence Darel	...	Line
Jean-Jacques Vanier	...	Georges
Claude Duparfait	...	Le flic
Marc Andréoni	...	L'inspecteur IGS
Dominique Frot	...	La responsable d'identification
Jacques Seiler	...	Le passeur
Franck Manzoni	...	L'orateur

Storyline

Ben works in a morgue. Ben's wife left him and he is into various kinds of alternative sexuality. Teresa dies of an ecstasy overdose on the dance floor. When she is brought to the morgue, she is resurrected -how shall I say?- in Ben's arms (that part based on a true story). From this starting point, the film revolves around the interactions between them and Boris (orgy fan), Abdel (no sentimental life), Ducon (wants to kill himself), Nico (dying of AIDS), etc... A social study of the 90s with heavy references to sex and death.

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Plot Keywords:

sex | dominatrix

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Official Site

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

6 January 1999 (France)

Also Known As:

Den lille død

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$4,488 (USA) (21 April 2000)

Gross:

$4,488 (USA) (21 April 2000)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Program 33

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

User Reviews

A Look at being a voyeur on bored people debasing themselves

The picture is about using sexual deviation to cure tedium. Here is a group of people who are living boring lives so they are experimenting with sexual variation to give them a quick fix. This creates more impairment to these discontented people and as such the results are they become even more miserable. The end result is you get to share a "slice of life" with unhappy people having meaningless deviant sexual encounters with other unhappy people while looking for some substance in there lives. If this doesn't sound like a wonderful way to spend the evening, then I also agree.

The central character works in a morgue and some of his coworkers exchange girl friends/wives, watch home made pornography and contribute to the debasement of the women who love them. They spend the time in-between yelling at each other and feeling sorry for how miserable their lives are. The only time there is any warmth in the movie is when they are visiting their friend who is dying of AIDS. This subplot is suppose to give us some reference about life and death but it is overshadowed by the selfish behavior of the leading roles. Besides the main character who has three women who care for him and he treats them all with disdain there is a suicidal man and a lady who had died recently of a drug overdose but managed to come back to life. The main character introduced the other two into his world of S&M, general depravity but mostly humiliation. They seen to get along fine, as they are as screwed up as he is. The man keeps a book of all his sexual encounters as this is the meaning for his life and the girl is just a bored youth living on ecstasy and techno music. This movie is not about sexual obsession like Damage, Turkish Delight or even Last Tango in Paris it is about boredom, plain and not so simple. The result left me not caring about the main character, not caring what these people do and only feeling sorry for the female roles that are played with some feeling and sensitivity but not enough to save this movie from being lackluster and unmoving.