Tout Va Bien: A Movie Review Well, this divisive film certainly has polarized both those for and against consumerism at its finest: capitalism. One understands through the film that there are a lot of disgruntled people out there in "la Belle France" who basically strive hard to change things, from time to time, when times get rough, or things get intolerable in the political scheme of things. We see from the film, certain things that really catch our visual gaze: the eerie supermarket scene, where shoppers are basically targeted for their purchasing large quantities of goods big enough to feed an entire Catholic household by angry "anti-consumerist" revolutionaries who basically seem out of love with the French version of the supermarket, l'hyper-marché. We see that, not only in this scene but in others, there are many disgruntled workers/student activists, who want desperately to weed out the continuing problems in their society that won't seem to go away, no matter what they do. There are, next, the problems faced by the meat-packing workers who work in the meat-packing plant, who are faced with the problems wrought by working at a meat- packing plant, namely, cancer. Though these workers have a boss who is apparently jolly, cheery, and indeed, corpulent, they have nothing to live for as they are all dissatisfied with their jobs and indeed have to sing songs of protest directly in "leur patron's" face in order to get the message across to him that they "ain't gonna take it anymore." In fact, this movie reminds me so much of "Potiche" in its almost comedic look at French workers striking, so unique and unusual, and even creative in their tactics, are they. In Potiche, a movie which I am probably not even supposed to be reviewing on here, we find that a suburban housewife is tired of her banal existence as a housewife and wants instead to be mayor of her small town (her alternative existence is not very good; all she gets in that life is being chased around by squirrels on her daily jogs, washing dishes and cooking in her apron, and getting cheated on by her cigar- smoking husband). So, we find that, Catherine Deneuve, who plays this feisty house-wife- no-more character, becomes the lead striker in that she address the strikers' concerns whole-heartedly, being the former wife of the deceased husband and woman-chaser, and, like a true fiery politician, changes the way things were previously run at their car-producing- factory (or, something like that). So, while some may immediately label Godard as a boring film-producer who only produces film for his own money-making benefit (and, after all, we all have to earn our bread somehow, don't we?), there are those of us out there who have to acknowledge that the man is a prolific film- producer, and we can't just be jealous if there is nothing we can do about it. In addition, there are scenes in Tout Va bien which makes us question whether really, "Tout Va bien" or, "Tout ne va pas bien, du tout." There are scenes of utter chaos, to be sure, in the supermarket scene, which leads the average viewer to believe in miracles; the shoppers eventually catch on that there is enough chaos in the air that they will not be penalized if they take a little extra of the food and other supplies that the grocery store has to offer. The film-makers who are documenting the strike in this way truly believe that they need to change the mechanical way in which the butchers, or, before that, the factory- worker-butchers, are forced to behave; like robots. But, as we human beings are not robots, we must not be forced to act in this way for too long, or else, we will explode. The building in which many of these workers work, singing rather merry protest songs, cheerfully, along the lines of, "let's behead le patron" and things like that to scare him, aren't pacified by his apparent placidness and seemingly sociable manner and willingness to become one with his inferiors, at least for five minutes. We find that, indeed, the workers hate him, anyway, and will line up outside his door for days, weeks, months, if they have to. One unforgettable moment, anyway, is when the boss actually loses, it, technically, and throws a brick to pee out the window; the chants are surprisingly melodious, in fact, and they verge on rounds, which is quite incredible to me that strikers' songs, supposedly created on the spur of the moment, spun out of workers' minds, can be quite so creative. So, this movie, which starts out patriotic enough, advertising "la France" with the red, white and blue of its flag (it puts its letters in this colorful design), spans the years from 1968, when there were great student protests and somewhat violent riots against the police, to 1972, when the fictional, but largely truth-based strikes take place. The director is very revealing in the ways in which he shoots his scenes, he lays everything bare: his voice supposedly is heard calling the shots, literally, like, "Tout Va Bien, part two, cut," or "Tout Va Bien, scene three, take 5, cut," etcetera, etcetera, until the film really begins. Jane Fonda, and Yves Montand, and Victor Capprioli, also star, so no wonder that this was a popular film, at least during its time. Indeed, this is quite a film, a lot of work went into it.
Review of All's Well
