Harry means well to you

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Movie
German title Harry means well to you
Original title Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 2000
length 117 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Dominik Moll
script Dominik Moll
Gilles Marchand
production Michel Saint-Jean
music David Whitaker
camera Matthieu Poirot-Delpech
cut Yannick Kergoat
occupation

Harry means well with you is a black comedy by the French director Dominik Moll from 2000. The title role is played by Sergi López , who was awarded the César and the European Film Prize for his portrayal of Harry . Moll's second full-length feature film after his debut Intimité from 1994 is set in rural France and is about a family man and his problems, which his self-declared friend Harry tries to solve in a drastic way.

action

Michel and Claire are on the stressful journey with their three daughters to their cottage in the country that needs renovation. At a rest stop, Michel meets an old friend, the wealthy idler Harry. Michel invites Harry and his sweet friend Prune to dinner in the country house. Harry cares about the family and listens carefully to Michel's complaints about his life situation. He surprises Michel by fervently reciting one of his school poems. After the evening, Harry and Prune move into a room under the roof of the house, some time later they move to a nearby hotel because Prune misses the swimming pool.

Harry urges Michel to start writing again. To make this easier, Harry first gives the reluctant Claire an air-conditioned car to replace the family's old make. Then he sets out to eliminate other disruptive elements in Michel's life. Take Michel's possessive parents, for example, whom he was involved in a fatal car accident. After the funeral, Michel's lazy brother also has to go, as he makes fun of Harry's beloved poem Michel. Harry proceeds in cold blood and method, nothing points to him as a murderer, even if there are suspicions. Michel actually begins to revisit an adolescent story about flying monkeys, but things are in crisis between him and Claire.

Harry and his girlfriend are now moving into the house with Michel and Claire. Through statements by Michel, Harry has strong doubts about his girlfriend's intellect. He also kills her without further ado and, with the help of the perplexed and indecisive Michel, lets her disappear into an old well behind the house. But when Harry announced that he would also have to kill Michel's wife and children, Michel went too far. In a fight instead, Harry has to give up his life. Michel also throws Harry's corpse into the shaft, which he then completely fills up in a nocturnal effort.

The film ends with the family returning home, this time with a happily smiling Michel and a relaxed family in the new car.

Reviews

The film was received positively by the critics, although the subject of the charming, sociopathic stranger is quite worn. For example, Jean-Michel Frodon writes in the French daily Le Monde that the film, in its ambitious composition and its humorous style, is a mixture that makes one think of Hitchcock and Claude Chabrol at the same time . This parallel is also made in a review of the BBC by Michael Thomson. Although the film is only Moll's second directorial work, the director gives the impression that he has spent his whole life making thrillers. The lexicon of international films sees in Harry means well with you "a black comedy that turns into a thriller with horror elements to celebrate with bitter irony the triumph of the family idyll over the adversities of everyday life."

In a review in the online presence of Sight & Sound , Chris Darke points out that Moll also deliberately plays with allusions: Harry's last name is the same as Henry Fonda's character in Hitchcock's 1956 thriller The Wrong Man . Moll, however, not only absorbs these influences, he incorporates them. Thilo Wydra writes in the online presence of Schnitt that the director succeeds in maintaining the tension throughout the entire film, which flows evenly without changing the narrative tempo. In doing so, Moll “performed the subtle change in the character of Harry extremely slowly. When you leave civilization, the atmosphere gradually turns over. Harry's big grin changes. It is no longer friendly and naive. It's diabolical-psychotic. ”The figure of Harry can also be interpreted as a projection of Michel, his fears and desires, as well as the other that enables Michel to pursue his writing ambitions again. The relationship between the clerk and the killer becomes a Faustian pact .

The bathroom in the run-down country house plays an interesting role in the film, newly renovated and completely painted in screaming pink. Darke sees this place, to which Michel retreats to write, in the style of David Lynch , as a symbolic, fertile space in which Michel's half-baked fantasies ripen like in a womb. The themes of virility and fertility run through the whole film subtly, for example when Harry eats raw eggs at night because they supposedly increase his potency.

Awards

The film has won several awards: at the French Film Prize, it received a total of four Césars for direction, best leading actor (Sergi López), editing (Yannick Kergoat) and sound ( François Maurel , Gérard Lamps and Gérard Hardy ), the prize of the international film festival from San Diego and the European Film Award for the actor Sergi López .

The film was nominated in five other categories of the French César Film Prize , including a nomination for Best Music by David Whitaker , as well as nominations in two other categories of the European Film Prize and a BAFTA Award .

He competed in the official section in 2000 for the Palme d'Or in Cannes .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Review by Darke at Sight & Sound , accessed April 8, 2008
  2. ^ Excerpt from the review in Le Monde , accessed on April 8, 2008
  3. ↑ Review by Thomson at the BBC , accessed April 8, 2008
  4. ↑ Harry, He's Here To Help. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film Service , accessed June 13, 2011 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ↑ a b review in the section , accessed on April 4, 2008

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