Tandem

There are a lot of directors in France who have been unjustly ignored by its mainstream press. This has a lot to do with the manner in which French films are received at home and outside of France. However, it is not a secret that French press has always tried to ignore its own directors. This attitude has not at all bothered director Patrice Leconte as he has a lot of loyal fans including famous people such as rock singer Mick Jagger."Tandem" is one of the most ambitious comedy film ever helmed by Patrice Chereau. It speaks about people who take their work very seriously. As a result of their dedication to work,they are unable to think anything beyond their work.This film's key roles have been played by Jean Rochefort and Gérard Jugnot who travel around France to record quiz shows.It is during one of their trips that one person learns about something for which the second person wouldn't utter anything. Although TV has always been popular in France,Tandem features a world where radio played a larger role in society.Lastly,"Tandem" teaches us all some moral lessons about the handling of a bare truth.

Mortez (Rochefort) is a famous ageing radio game host who spend his life on the road, going from town to town for his show, with his younger sidekick Rivetot (Jugnot). The show is their whole life, until the radio station decides to cancel it... "Tandem" is a tragedy, a comedy, a road-movie and a tale in the same package. The background manages to be both hyperrealistic (it depicts a gloomy provincial life and is inspired by a real game show that still exists today) and fantastic (surreal events abound, like the mysterious red dog Rivetot keeps seeing). Rochefort is simply great as the charming but obsessive Mortez who will never surrender. Jugnot, as the subdued sidekick that has trouble living without his mentor, delivers a strong performance far from his usual slapstick roles. Both make a heartbreaking, unforgettable tandem and the movie is one of the masterpieces of the 80's.

It is for sure I don't know much about French cinema and Leconte but when I watched Jugnot in "LES CHORISTES" I was impressed by his performance. He's really a sympathetic actor who could give something from himself into the role he is playing. Tandem is about a radio programmer-Michel Marteau ,who changed his name to Michel Mortez to inspire a more exotic effect. He has been doing the same quiz-show for 25 years.His chauffeur and his co-programmer insistingly covers up the finish notices of the radio programme from Mortez. Mortez is someone who is indignant with road-side picnickers and one day on program back when he takes charge of the steering wheel when Rivetot(Jognot) feels sleepy. He stops someplace and hurls insults a couple of road-side picnickers but when the car breaks down he has to take back his words and does the show the picnickers. Such scenes add a really comical affect to the movie and the harmony Gérard Jugnot and Jean Rochefort is great but one thing especially caught my attention. Both of the characters have some weaknesses, some misery and poorness within their souls. Somehow we are not able to see misery in contrast to happiness. I could not descry open positive feelings in the movie and that's something lacking in the course of the movie. All in all worth watching but it's neither a masterpiece nor a great movie!

Another great movie from Leconte and one that marked a departure from the strictly laugh-filled movies he'd done up to this point. This one has everything, comedy, certainly, but seasoned with a dash of pathos and honest sentiment. Rochefort is outstanding as usual - not for nothing does Leconte use him time and time again - but the revelation is Gerard Jugnot, also best known at this time for strictly comedy roles, displaying a wonderfully sensitive side and limning a real 'human' being foreshadowing by some fifteen years his standout performance in Les Choristes (still, disgracefully, unshown commercially in London almost a year after its release in France and some six months after being released in HONG KONG!). Jugnot plays Rivetot, mechanic, engineer, sidekick and general dogsbody to Rochefort's Mortez. Mortez is the host of a radio quiz show with which he has been touring France for several years but his penchant for gambling means there is very little in the kitty so that the two men are obliged to share twin-bedded rooms in each town they play. The radio station have effectively axed the show but Rivetot keeps the news from Mortez, knowing it would metaphorically kill him. This is a wonderful melange of laughter and tears and warm, human friendships and shows Leconte emerging as a consummate film maker.

Another great movie from Patrice Leconte. About whom we fans of his can say,

like Michel Mortez, that it's been twenty--what am I saying?--twenty-five years that he's been making fine movies. And while Jean Rochefort's Mortez, with his airs of a "grand seigneur" is a fine character, I was more entranced by Jugnot's Rivetot, the wonderfully human Sancho Panza to Mortez's Don Quixote.

Leconte is an unusual writer and director: supremely intelligent, witty, cool, mature, he nonetheless has the ability to write roles for an actor like Jugnot, who seems at heart, and in the most endearing way, still to be a child. I don't know how Leconte manages this feat. All I can do is marvel.