The jewel
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The jewel |
| Original title | Potiche |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 2010 |
| length | 103 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 6 JMK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | François Ozon |
| script | François Ozon |
| production |
Eric Altmeyer , Nicolas Altmeyer , Genevieve Lemal |
| music | Philippe Rombi |
| camera | Yorick Le Saux |
| cut | Laure Gardette |
| occupation | |
| |
Das Schmuckstück (Original title: Potiche ) is a French comedy film by François Ozon with Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu from 2010. The stage play Potiche (1980) by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy served as a literary model .
action
The fictional small town of Sainte-Gudule 1977: Suzanne Pujol is a housewife and mother. When she's not cooking, she enjoys jogging and writing poetry. Her husband Robert meanwhile runs his umbrella factory with an iron hand. Not only at work, but also privately, Robert proves to be a selfish macho who no longer sees his wife as a decorative piece of jewelry. He also cheats on Suzanne with his secretary Nadège. Daughter Joëlle, who already has two children, doesn't want to end up like her mother. She has decided to leave her husband and take a job in the factory. Son Laurent, on the other hand, would rather be artistically active instead of one day becoming head of the factory.
When the workers in the factory demand more money and go on strike, Suzanne seeks out the communist mayor, Maurice Babin. They once had an affair and now he is supposed to help her end the strike. When Babin confronts Robert with having bought an expensive car and other luxury goods at company expense, Robert suffers a heart attack. Babin then persuades Suzanne to take over the management of the factory and to negotiate with the workers. Thanks to her diplomatic and friendly manner, Suzanne manages to calm the workers down and get production going again. In particular, the otherwise rather passive Laurent supports his mother as much as he can. Inspired by his favorite artist Wassily Kandinsky , he designs new patterns for the umbrellas. With his ideas and Suzanne's respectful, yet efficient management style, the company makes more profit than ever.
Suzanne and Babin go dancing one evening. They wallow in memories and Babin hopes that Suzanne will leave her husband and live with him from now on. Suzanne does not want to get involved and gives him a kiss to comfort him. When Robert has recovered from his heart attack, he wants to take control of the factory again. However, Suzanne refuses to revert to her old role model. Together with her sister, her children and others, she has more shares in the factory than Robert. Secretary Nadège also takes Suzanne's side, as Robert never respected her as much as Suzanne did.
After Robert learns from Suzanne that Laurent is not his son, he believes Babin is the actual father. Robert looks for Babin and wants to blackmail him with the illegitimate son. However, Babin is happy to be the unexpected father of a son. He drives with Suzanne to a lake, where she pours him pure wine. Laurent is not from him either, but most likely from a notary with whom she once had an affair. Babin is very disappointed with this and leaves her alone in the wilderness. Suzanne finally returns home, first on foot and then by hitchhiking.
Robert was meanwhile able to convince Joëlle to give him her shares, whereupon he takes over the leadership again. Joëlle confesses to her mother that her father had promised her that she would employ her husband for her shares. She is pregnant again and no longer wants to be divorced. In the end, Suzanne also prefers to stay married to Robert. However, through her newfound independence, she feels encouraged to get into politics. As a competitor of Babin, she was ultimately elected to the Paris National Assembly.
background
The French word "potiche" means "porcelain vase", but is also used colloquially for housewives who are assigned a decorative function by their husbands. The literary model, the play Potiche by Pierre Barillet (* 1923) and Jean-Pierre Grédy (* 1920), was premiered in 1980. In a 1982 theater production, Danielle Darrieux played the role of Suzanne Pujol, which Catherine Deneuve took on in François Ozone's screen adaptation. The filming of the film took place in Belgium from October to December 2009 , where the Place de la Vaillance in Anderlecht and the Lac du Ri Jaune in Cerfontaine were used as locations.
With the umbrella factory, director Ozon alludes to Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), with which Catherine Deneuve made her breakthrough. The sentence uttered by Fabrice Luchini as a tyrannical husband to his striking workers - “If they want more money, they should also work more” - comes in the French original literally from France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy , with which Ozon deliberately draws parallels with the Sarkozy government .
On September 4, 2010 Das Schmuckstück had its acclaimed premiere at the 67th Venice International Film Festival , where the film took part in the competition for the Golden Lion . The film was also celebrated nine days later at the Toronto International Film Festival . In France, the comedy was released on November 10, 2010 and was number 1 in the box office for two weeks. In Germany, the film opened in cinemas on March 24, 2011 and was released on DVD in August 2011.
Reviews
The lexicon of international films described Das Schmuckstück as an “exaggerated emancipation comedy with relish”. It was designed "as a lovable homage to 'classic' American and French film musicals", "which could convince through its nostalgic qualities but also through its political bite aimed at the present". Jan Schulz-Ojala from Tagesspiegel stated that the film had “everything a good comedy needs: speed, dialog humor, surprises and a lot of pleasure in dramatic exaggeration, in which even more uncomfortable truths really flash”. According to Peter Zander von der Welt , "[n] och never [...] a director challenged Madame Deneuve so physically". Ozon had staged a "a little bit giddy and clumsy farce" with "numerous spikes against the Sarkozy government". "Alleged clowning turns out to be a fantasy of liberation".
According to Daniel Kothenschulte from the Berliner Zeitung , the film is "entirely dedicated to the great Catherine Deneuve". She dominates "the film just as unchallenged as she runs the company". She represents "such a popular feminism as if Mary Poppins had allied herself with the suffragettes ". At the Lido she was celebrated "for her concentrated uniqueness" and deservedly. Silvia Hallensleben from epd Film noted "weaknesses of the nevertheless extremely respectable film" in relation to the staging of the plot, which "disappoints after the hopeful exposition with gross inconsistencies and a lack of detail in aspects that are actually comedy".
Awards
In addition to the invitation to the competition for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival , nominations for the Audience Award of the European Film Prize , for the Nastro d'Argento in the category Best European Director (François Ozon), for the Prix Lumières in the category Best Actress followed (Catherine Deneuve) and for César in the categories of Best Actress (Catherine Deneuve), Best Supporting Actress (Karin Viard), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Costumes .
The German film and media rating awarded the film the title “Particularly valuable”. 2012 the film also received a nomination for the BAFTA Film Award in the category Best Foreign Language Film , but lost Pedro Almodóvar's film The Skin I Live In .
German version
The German dubbed version was made by Berliner Synchron . The dialogue book was written by Heinz Freitag , who also directed the dialogue. Catherine Deneuve was dubbed by Senta Berger as in Ozone's film 8 Women .
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Suzanne Pujol | Catherine Deneuve | Senta Berger |
| Maurice Babin | Gérard Depardieu | Manfred Lehmann |
| Robert Pujol | Fabrice Luchini | Stephan Schwartz |
| Nadège | Karin Viard | Katrin Zimmermann |
| Joëlle Pujol | Judith Godrèche | Diana Borgwardt |
| Laurent Pujol | Jérémie Renier | Michael Baral |
| André Ferron | Bruno Lochet | Viktor Neumann |
| doctor | Jean-Louis Leclercq | Werner Ziebig |
Web links
- The jewel in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The jewel at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- The jewel at Metacritic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Das Schmuckstück . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2011 (PDF; test number: 126 958 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Das Schmuckstück . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ cf. kino.de ( Memento from September 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ cf. insidekino.de
- ↑ The gem. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 19, 2020 .
- ↑ Jan Schulz-Ojala: Comedy fever in Venice . In: Der Tagesspiegel , September 6, 2010.
- ↑ Peter Zander: Free the country from Franco with the machete . In: Die Welt , September 7, 2010.
- ↑ Daniel Kothenschulte : The monotony of the jet set . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 6, 2010.
- ↑ Silvia Hallensleben: review of the piece of jewelry . In: epd Film , March 11, 2011.
- ↑ cf. fbw-filmb Bewertung.com
- ↑ The gem. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 22, 2020 .