French Film: Jacquou le Croquant

I don’t know quite how to translate the title of the French movie I saw Saturday night, (‘Jack-o the Cracker’?) but I’m fairly sure this one won’t be seeing too many American movie screens, so the point is perhaps moot. Anyway, ‘croquant’ is a nickname given to the thousands of peasants who revolted against unfair taxation by nobles in the 16th century. The French book that inspired the film, as well as 1969 TV mini-series, tells the story of a rural peasant who is treated cruelly by the local nobility as a young boy, then grows up to lead a rebellion and get his revenge.

The leading star of the movie is Gaspard Ulliel, the former male model who starred with Audrey Tautou in ‘A Very Long Engagement’ and will soon be seen as the young Hannibal Lecter in ‘Hannibal Rising’. In this film, he loses the first half screen time to a cute kid who plays the young Jacquou, desperately in need of a hair cut(see photo). Among the other stars are Tcheky Karyo, who was also in ‘A Very Long Engagement’, and the darkly alluring Bojana Panic, in one of her first major roles to accompany her modeling career.

My movie companions were two fellow etrangers, from England and India, so I can’t say that we got everything from this movie, but we found that we had a good time anyway. It lasted two and half hours, and we were a little nervous about getting lost in the dialogue, but in fact even the least French-able of us could follow, due to the straightforward plot. Now, that seems like a contradiction, right? How can a straightforward plot go on for two and a half hours? The solution: about an hours worth of walking in the woods, in the snow, and running through fields of flowers. My Indian friend commented that she was worried that they were going to start singing and dancing as if it were a Bollywood film.

There was at least some dancing: a crucial clog-dancing competition which ended in a tete-a-tete between the Count and Jacquou. Guess whose inspirational clog-dancing was the talk of the town, and who left in disgust (see photo of the Count and his youngest daughter).

The adult Jacquou has two main women of interest in his life: his sweet childhood love Lina, of the flowery fields, and the proud huntress La Galiote, the youngest daughter of the Count. In the course of the movie, both of them try to sneakily catch glimpses of naked Jacquou. Nonetheless, the two are opposites, and even though Jacquou wants to hate La Galiote, he is attracted by her fiery will and dark come-hither eyes. Jacquou himself is pretty much consumed by the need for vengeance against the Count, but somehow finds himself torn between them, especially at the end of the film. I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that, in the end, a boat sails away into a beautiful CGI sunset.

If your interest is piqued, you can watch the trailers and clips on allocine.fr.