When someone goes bankrupt,up come the dreaded bailiffs;they carry out decisions made in the courts,for example evictions for non- payment of rent and (ouch!)seizure of goods.I must confess that I'm not that much interested in the relationship between these two bailiffs with good prospects ,one of them going as far as to jeopardize his career for the sake of,say,art.
On the other hand,all that concerns pop singer Michel Delpech is far from being derivative and gets off the beaten track.I have never been his fan,but when "Chez Laurette " ," Les Divorcés" or "Marianne" are on a nostalgic radio,it's fine with me!Delpech was one of the rare artists to depict his old age (before him,to my knowledge ,only the Beatles did it in "when I'm sixty-four" (1967))and it took a lot of guts to sing a song such as "Quand J'Etais Chanteur" ;he passed away last January and he is sadly missed in his native country.
A very successful artist in the sixties (I remember the first time I'd heard him in 1965: "Chez Laurette " was on the RTL charts)and through the seventies,before a descent into hell and a come back in the naughties after a conversion to catholicism .
Michel Delpech appears as a man who found peace of mind ;he does not seem to play a part ,he acts naturally ,and most of the time ,his scenes look more "cinema vérité" than a fictionalized story of a has- been ;during the whole movie,he keeps a low profile ,and ,in any advent,the audience has only eyes for him.When the bailiffs evaluate his goods ,he acts as if he does not care,showing his disregard for material goods .Which makes sense ,considering his personal story.
His relationship with his audience,when he performs on stage,is as intact and as warm as it was in his heyday,and because the live acts are few and far between in the movie ,they are all the more precious. The title of the movie is thoroughly justified:you would not think to look at him,but he knew what he was doing.
