Displaying items by tag: I am not an Easy Man
I am not an Easy Man
I AM NOT AN EASY MAN
France, 2018, 98 minutes, Colour.
Vincent Elbaz, Marie-Sophie Ferdane, Pierre Benezit, Blanche Gardin, Celine Menville, Remi Gerard, Olivier Pajot..
Directed by Eleonore Pourriat.
A French comedy from 2018, the time of the emergence of the #Me Too movement, especially in the US.
This is a comedy variation on the vice versa genre films, children becoming parents and vice versa, characters returning to a younger age or moving to an older age. This time it is a man entering into an alternate universe.
The message is basic, a feminist critique of chauvinist male behaviour. The central character, Damian, is very cavalier, thinking himself a ladies man, dismissive of the women and business meetings. Turning and ogling, he walks into a lamppost and collapses, waking to see a sign indicating Mere Lachaise Cemetery and discovering a reverse world while he remains the same, the chauvinist male puzzled by what he is seeing.
The film is comparatively small scale, a few characters, the city of Paris. Damian then sees the women dressing in a more masculine way, discovering they are in charge of business, and doing traditional male work. And then he discovers that the men are in a way that males often attributed to women, their interest in clothes, their emotions, their subservient roles, being dismissed… And some of the subtitles play on this with words referring to lumberjanes, and a variation on a common coarse swear word…
The other central character is Alexandra, who worked in a bookshop but now is in charge, a celebrated writer, behaving in the male chauvinist way as are some of the other female characters.
Damian is sometimes bewildered, but always judging from the chauvinist perspective, entering a relationship with Alexandra, she taking him on as a case study problem, recording their encounters, she treating him in the sexual relationship as audiences are used to seening many men treating women.
The message is clear, the comparisons often amusing but highlighting male bad attitudes and behaviour and how women are seen and treated. Perhaps it is the French, but so much of the comparisons between men and women focuses on bodies, bodily behaviour, sexuality, sexual relationships, dominance and submission (and a visit to a club where there is a cross-dressing singer with the ballad rendition of a song from Grease, not mentioned specifically, but example of a Drag King! Finally, Alexandra, involved in a divorce situation, misjudged by Damian, encounters a feminist protest march through the city, and discovers Damian now marching in sympathy with the women.
The basic plot was reworked for Ladies First. However, the plot is highly amplified, especially with its cast, Sasha Baron Cohen and his reputation as Borat and other chauvinist characters, with Rosamund Pike noted for strong female commanding roles. And, there is a significant British supporting cast, a world of bigger business than the original, the same humour with the reversal of male and female behaviour, more chauvinist treatment by the women from the office, then Damien and his being knocked out again and learning his lesson.
