Le dernier des fous (2006)
Le dernier des fous / The Last of the Crazy People (2006)
DVD9 (VIDEO_TS) | PAL 16:9 (720x576) | 01:34:12 | 6,52 Gb
Audio: French AC3 5.1/2.0 @ 448/192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Drama | 3 wins | France
DVD9 (VIDEO_TS) | PAL 16:9 (720x576) | 01:34:12 | 6,52 Gb
Audio: French AC3 5.1/2.0 @ 448/192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Drama | 3 wins | France
Young Martin watches the quirky, extraordinary events that occur in and around the family home and barn from a distance. Quiet and introverted, it is only the housemaid and occasionally his brother, Didier, who pay him any attention. As for his mother, she has locked herself away in her room, while his grandmother assumes control of the household, which is slowly falling apart. When Didier discovers that his next-door neighbour and lover have decided to get married, all hell breaks loose, and the family disintegrates.
IMDB
With its French countryside setting and troubling activities taking place on a farming estate with evident tension and divisions between the owners and their North African servants, Laurent Achard’s 2006 film The Last of the Crazy People (Le dernier des fous) has inevitably been compared to Michael Haneke’s Hidden, made the previous year. Seen through the eyes of a young 10 year-old boy growing up in this unstable environment however, Achard tries to take in a wider look at prejudice and corruption, as well as social divisions, touching on religion and sexuality in a manner that is closer in theme to Buñuel’s El or Viridiana.
Le dernier des fous (2006)
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There are a lot of crazy, mixed-up relationships in Martin’s family and it’s not insignificant that the first view we have of the boy is of him in a dark cellar, looking out on the playground on the last day of school in the summer before he starts middle-school. Martin is in the dark about a lot of things that are going on in his family, whose activities he observes with the seemingly cool eye of a dispassionate observer – his semi-catatonic mother confined to her room, his father’s role as the head of the family undermined by his failure as a husband and a businessman, the running of the estate being taken over by his grandmother Rose (and I may be reading too much into this, but there may even be a suggestion of an incestuous or at least unnatural relationship here that could be at the root of the problems). Martin’s writer brother Didier meanwhile is in a state since his secret lover, a boy from a rich neighbouring farm estate, is going to be married.
Le dernier des fous (2006)
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Despite appearances, Martin however is clearly not unaffected by what he sees around him. Lacking a normal family life and guidance, he naturally turns to the family’s North African maidservant Malika, looking for love and direction, but the differences in class and religious observance that he witnesses, along with their social status, make it difficult for him to fit in. Clearly not even fitting in with children of his own age, and at a difficult age himself, he also fails to read the situation of a young adolescent girl be befriends. Added to all this confusion going on in Martin’s life, there is a strong sense of death, decay and corruption evident throughout, which adds a further level of complexity to the situation – a dead weasel injured by the cat that Martin’s brother encourages him to finish off with an axe, vicious crows hopping around the kill, his brother playing dead at the dinner table, the feared drowning of his young friend, not to mention the discovery of a gun, an item that the laws of drama, not to mention its prominent placing on the cover of the DVD, suggest will play an important part in what is to follow.
Le dernier des fous (2006)
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If indeed at times a little too close in visual references to Caché, director Laurent Achard orchestrates all these elements extremely well into a situation rife with suggestion and tension, one that is effectively downplayed by the impassive presence of the young Julien Cochelin, who captures the innocence of the young boy caught up in a situation that cannot but corrupt. Such is the extent of all this horror that’s the film’s conclusion cannot be anything but highly charged, and Archard takes this to its logical almost Ibsen-like dramatic finale.
Le dernier des fous (2006)
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There’s a grim inevitability to how events will play out in The Last of the Crazy People that is evident from the first frame and is evident throughout written on the face of the marvellous young protagonist, Martin. Laurent Achard sustains the intensity of the broken family situation well, bringing in other social aspects relevant to France (the setting of the original source novel by Timothy Findley is Canadian) and seeing the film through to its dramatic conclusion. Peccadillo’s presentation of this intriguing film is just fine.
Le dernier des fous (2006)
Le Dernier des fous, the second feature from French director Laurent Achard, offers a disturbing yet heart-wrenching account of how a child’s psychology and well-being can be warped and destroyed by the world he inhabits. The film is based on the provocative novel The Last of the Crazy People by the Canadian writer Timothy Findley and garnered two prestigious awards in 2006: the Best Director award at the Locarno Film Festival and the Jean Vigo Prize, an accolade that is reserved for works of exceptional originality.
Le dernier des fous (2006)
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Plotwise, the film has some common ground with the classic slasher movies Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980), particularly as the central character, the boy Martin, betrays not one trace of emotion and has a sinister ghoul-like presence which makes the gruesome denouement entirely predictable. Yet this is most definitely not a slasher movie. Rather, it is an intelligent piece of social drama which shows the extent to which a child’s actions, which may be totally incomprehensible to an adult, can be directly attributed to the environment in which he grows up.
Le dernier des fous (2006)
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Although we see the world through the eyes of ten-year-old Martin, we never know quite what impact his experiences are having on him. We see him neglected and brutalised, unable to comprehend his older brother’s mood swings, his mother’s mental decline and his father’s apparent indifference. We anticipate how the drama will end and finally realise that the outcome is inevitable. No child that is denied love will appreciate the value of life, and some are bound to stray down the dark path that leads to carnage. Why then are we so inordinately shocked and surprised when such atrocities happen in real life?
Le dernier des fous (2006)
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As with his previous film, Plus qu’hier moins que demain (1998), Laurent Achard gives us a work that is darkly poetic, combining stark realism with some unsettling expressionistic flourishes. Periodically, the placid calm of the film, accentuated by its static camerawork and a complete lack of music, is fractured by discordant sound and bursts of action which violently jolts the spectator back to reality. We are reminded that underneath the surface calm a storm is brewing, a storm that will wreak devastation when it breaks. Martin’s face may be as blank and expressionless as a death mask, but we know what lies beneath – a confused, fearful soul that has no comprehension of the significance of life. Despite its narrative simplicity, slow pace and somewhat superficial characterisation, Le Dernier des fou manages to be an arresting and throught-provoking piece of drama, a reminder perhaps that evil is not born but nurtured.James Travers, Films de France
Le dernier des fous (2006)
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