Agence matrimoniale

Jean-Paul Le Chanois was the bete noire of the nouvelle vague ;but now there's a tendency to restore to favor his best films , championned by Bertrand Tavernier and Jacques Lourcelles. And the scorn they pour on his work comes from people who never saw a Le Chanois movie ; certainly ,his post "agence matrimoniale " efforts are dispensable, but his best works ("Messieurs Ludovic" " sans laisser d'adresse" and the marvelous "l'école buissonnière" )are endearing works and it's to these that any sensible review must address itself.

Bernard Blier was the hero of all these movies;he epitomizes the director's humanism , his love for simple people ;populist to the score , his sincerity could not be called into question:Le Chanois was a communist intellectual .

"Agence matrimoniale " begins with a prologue about marriage/divorce in the early fifties ; later on,the director interrupts the action with a voice over dialogue between the matrimonial agent and a bashful school teacher dealing with the lonely people 's situation:what do they do during these endless days on their own ;today ,they are still among us and they spend their time watching TV or surfing on internet ....But they are on their own, perhaps lonelier than ever. Virtual friends have replaced their imaginary ones.

Blier portrays a bachelor , who inherits a matrimonial agency. Against all odds, he manages to run his office ,with small victories and big defeats; by helping the others on their way to happiness, he eventually does soul-searching and realizes that his over possessive mother wanted to keep him for herself. She has always done her best to prevent him from marrying his childhood's friend (Michèle Alfa)

This is a time capsule of the days after WW2 : the hero has always felt he was in a prison: first school , then barracks, then POW camp; but it will take all the others' problems to make him become aware that the most dreadful jail was his mom's love.

Plenty of characters , beginners who would become very famous later on (Louis De Funès ,Pierre Mondy),"agence matrimoniale" features people you do not meet everyday: a deaf girl, another one who conceals her strawberry mark behind her headscarf , a pregnant girl who desesperately tries to find a husband in the agency before her formidable father knows of her condition .....

And an upbeat playful ending ...

Isn't the matrimonial agency subject interesting?As the Beatles sing "Ah look at all those lonely people?Where do they all come from?Where do they all belong?".To my knowledge,this is the only FRench movie which deals with it.

Bernard Blier is a bachelor and it is sure easy to see the reason why: an over possessive mother ;he once met a girl ,Gilberte ,but he threw it all away ...He inherits a matrimonial agency;after contemplating selling it ,he chooses to manage it.And Le Chanois does then what he does best: he creates one hundred characters ,one quality which was almost lost after the Nouvelle Vague rising.

Like Le Chanois's precedent work "Sans Laisser d' Adresse" ,"Agence Matrimoniale" is populist cinema.Not for highbrows ,but for people who like the old cinema,the one which tells stories.