Paulette (film)

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Movie
German title Paulette
Original title Paulette
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 2013
length 84 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Jérôme Enrico
script Jérôme Enrico,
Bianca Olsen ,
Laurie Aubanel ,
Cyril Rambour
production Alain Goldman
music Michel Ochowiak
camera Bruno private
cut Antoine Vareille
occupation

Paulette is a French crime comedy . Jérôme Enrico wrote and directed the script with three other authors .

action

2011: Paulette is an elderly lady who ekes out her existence in a run-down satellite suburb . She used to run a thriving restaurant with her husband. When the restaurant went downhill and finally closed, her husband passed away. She herself now has to get by with a minimum pension. She occasionally smuggles cockroaches into her former restaurant, which is now an Asian restaurant, in order to place them in the food. Her three friends, Maria, Lucienne and Renee, who play cards with her, are hostile to her, as is her friendly neighbor Walter. She also has a tense relationship with her daughter Agnes. This is especially true for the son-in-law Ousmane, since he is dark-skinned. Paulette blames the foreigner for her personal misfortune. Occasionally, her daughter asks her to supervise her grandson Leo, who is also dark-skinned, and she is extremely reluctant to do this.

While she argues with other needy people about the vegetable leftovers at a weekly market, she enviously watches the prosperity of some young people in the neighborhood. She quickly realizes that they are dealing drugs . One day her belongings are seized because she can no longer pay the bills. Her son-in-law, who works in the drug department, visits Paulette. He asks her in the hope that she can contribute observations to the machinations of the youth gangs. He is touched when Paulette seems to reduce her abrupt rejection and even begins to be interested in his police work. But Paulette is secretly only interested in insider knowledge about the customs of the drug industry. Armed with this information and a package of hashish thrown away by dealers fleeing, Paulette seeks contact with Vito, a dealer from the "middle management", and offers to sell cannabis for him. He gives her a chance, even though he doesn't expect much from her.

Because of her unsuspecting age and appearance, her work as a street dealer turns into a profitable business. She enjoys her work and her wealth is growing, but her success is not without envy. One day she is beaten up and robbed by competing dealers. While baking a cake, Paulette ponders in frustration how she should pay Vito out now. The grandson, frustrated after another attack of abuse from his grandmother, locks himself in the kitchen and mixes everything he can find into the cake mass in revenge - unknowingly also a piece of marijuana that he takes from a can. Paulette's friends, who have no idea about their job, love the cake. Paulette now sells hashish in the form of cookies. This business idea brings the breakthrough. Paulette hires her three friends and they sell the drug biscuits in her apartment with great success. But her character is also changing: she takes care of her family and friends, even goes out with her neighbor Walter - in her former, now Asian restaurant - and gradually reduces her prejudices against foreigners. Paulette's prosperity is also growing, she buys fine clothes and a 3D television . However, she also lives dangerously - for example when her son-in-law, the police officer, drops in.

Because of her success, Paulette is asked to have an "audience" with the Russian gang boss Taraz, Vito's superior. Vito is ousted after a brief conversation between Paulette and Taraz and Paulette is supposed to follow in his footsteps. But when Taraz presented his new expansion plans - selling drug biscuits in front of elementary schools - Paulette no longer wanted to participate. Her apartment is ransacked by Vito on Taraz's orders and her now beloved grandson is kidnapped. Ousmane can end the dangerous situation through a police action. Paulette and her friends get away with a suspended sentence. She, her daughter, her friends and Walter are legally continuing their business model in Amsterdam .

background

According to the director, the film is based on a true story.

The film premiered on October 4, 2012 at the Festa do Cinema Frances in Portugal. It was produced by Gaumont . The German premiere took place on July 13, 2013. In its country of origin, France, the production reached an audience of millions. In 2013, 542,813 visitors were counted at the German box office nationwide, making the film 61st of the most visited films of the year.

Leading actress Bernadette Lafont died in July 2013 at the age of 74, while the film was still showing in German cinemas. It was her last film.

The German first broadcast took place on July 14, 2014 on the station Das Erste under the title Paulette - The slightly different grandma .

Reviews

Der Spiegel praised the comedy as "very funny", even if not always politically correct, especially the leading actress could convince.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also sees the film positively: “The great Bernadette Lafont plays the beastly Paulette wonderfully and looks damn cool at the same time. (…) Role conception, play and sixties outfit seem like a lovingly ironic commentary on the early outsider roles of the Nouvelle Vague star. (...) It is always astonishing how much that is actually “incorrect” and malicious this post-Amélische branch of contemporary French cinema can accommodate in its films without becoming in any way radical: Paulette is not cute. (...) And the dealing is not played down, rather the entanglements with the drug mafia have very unpleasant effects on life in the medium term, even if there is of course a utopian ending (...) Also therefore it is a bit of a shame that "Paulette" only Another hearty social comedy has become, in which everyone is a little weird, a little lonely and crazy and rubs against their bizarre in lovingly furnished pictures until they all warm up. And the viewer too. "

Falk Schön von Filmstarts awards 4 out of 5 possible stars and says: “Jérôme Enrico's comedy“ Paulette ”is definitely not a summery French feelgood movie like“ The fabulous world of Amélie ”. Instead, the story about a retiree who deals with cannabis offers really bilious humor and, with her highly ambivalent final scene in the snow, causes a lot of controversial reactions. Satirically overdone, Enrico and his three co-authors denounce the serious economic and political situation in France on the basis of an individual fate. One of the numerous bravura pieces by the makers is that their initially bitter-looking main character credibly transforms into a popular figure. (…) Even if the melancholy undertones of Jérôme Enrico's comedy stand in the way of a summer feel-good mood, this clever work should not be missed. Conclusion: For the French, "Paulette" is a mirror of their social problems, for German viewers a window into the difficult situation in the neighboring country - funny, but not left out: a bittersweet, slightly melancholy grotesque with a formidable leading actress. "

The film service draws the following conclusion: “A sympathetic, harmless comedy that is only marginally interested in poverty in old age, but relies entirely on entertaining entertainment full of slapstick and dialog jokes, with the main actress performing in a true" tour de force ", but sometimes right acted exaggerated. "

Adaptations

The playwright Anna Bechstein adapted the film in 2016 under the title "Paulette - Grandma goes through" for the stage. In March 2017, the stage version premiered in a production of the a.gon Theater in Munich. in the Hameln Theater. The title role was played in the premiere production by the German actress Diana Körner . The stage work is published by Ahn & Simrock in Hamburg.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of release for Paulette . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2013 (PDF; test number: 139 361 K).
  2. ↑ Release Info. In: IMDb .
  3. ↑ a b Hannah Lühmann: Better than rap: integration using hashish. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , July 16, 2013.
  4. ↑ KINOaktuell: What you wanted: Münster's cinema year 2013, C. Lou Lloyd, Filminfo No. 4, January 23-29, 2014, p. 24f
  5. ↑ Carolin Weidner: Grandma pulls through. In: Spiegel Online , July 18, 2013.
  6. ↑ Falk Schön: Paulette In: Filmstarts , accessed on July 2, 2015.
  7. ↑ Paulette. In: Filmdienst , accessed July 2, 2015.
  8. ↑ Paulette - Grandma pulls through. In: a.gon - theater out of passion. Retrieved April 9, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Paulette - Grandma pulls through. Theater Hameln, accessed on April 9, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Paulette - Grandma pulls through. Ahn & Simrock Verlag, accessed April 9, 2017 .

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