Pardon Mon Affaire, written and directed by Yves Robert

Pardon Mon Affaire, written and directed by Yves Robert

For some reason, this amusing comedy has two titles and unlike the usual scenario, it is not one for domestic consumption and an adaptation for the English-speaking world, but two French names:

Un éléphant ça trompe énormément is the original title, which would mean that an elephant is very confusing, in an approximate translation, which does not refer to the hint the name may make at the trunk – aka trompe – and a possible (?) sexual significance…

This motion picture was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign film and has a tagline that is:

“Four million Frenchmen and 50,000 New Yorkers can't be wrong.”

This may be again difficult to comprehend, unless this is a joke – it seems very likely – that may suggest that four million Frenchmen have love affairs and only 50,000 New Yorkers- extramarital connections used to be – still are? – an acceptable French mode de vivre…joie de vivre?

Jean Rochefort is an outstanding, glorious actor – one of his exquisite performances is reviewed here: http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-man-on-train-with-jean-rochefort.html -who has the leading role in this film, that of Etienne – that would be Steven for the English-speaking world.

Another great French performer is Claude Brasseur – his great act in The Gates of Paris is looked at here: http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-gates-of-paris-aka-porte-des-lilas.html - and he plays one of the three friends of Etienne, Daniel.

The others are Simon and Bouly.

The hero is infatuated with Charlotte, played by the beautiful, talented Anny Duperey – to make this a little compilation of notes on other performances and motion pictures, she stared in Bobby Deerfield, together with Al Pacino and Marthe Keller, the note on this is here: http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/note-on-bobby-deerfield-directed-by_28.html.

One of the friends has an outré relationship with his mother, who appears in various comical scenes, including one on the tennis field, where the four comrades play and finally, there is more than an allusion to Freud.

In a bizarre, absurd and outrageous look at the Oedipus Complex, this friend is not only obsessed to his parent, who lives with him, follows him around and has an overbearing, exaggerated, preposterous – and amusing?- influence, but in the end, he does an abhorrent act.

He marries his mother!

Meanwhile, Etienne tries hard to impress and seduce Charlotte, who accepts to have a drink with him, at the bar, the man remembers to take out his wedding ring and pretends to be single.

Furthermore, in this effort to appear to be the ultimate knight in shining armor, the hero says that he rides horses on a regular basis and lies about other aspects of his life, in a misguided manner.

Harvard Professor Tal Ben Sharar mentions in his lectures – the most popular ever in the history of the quintessential higher education institution – that people make a terrible mistake when they pretend to be someone else while trying to conquer the other sex.

As he brilliantly points out, it means we introduce another person, with so many qualities, attributes and there are two possibilities:

1.       The partner we would like to have becomes in love, infatuated with this “other person” and not with the real interlocutor who had tried so far to promote this other man  or woman

2.       The interlocutor does not like this other person and the game is up anyway.

In one amusing scene, Etienne, Daniel and Charlotte drive to a flat where the former plans to have romantic moments with the latter, only to find the family, the wife, two teenage daughters and others waiting for a surprise celebration.

Etienne is lost and does not know what to say about his companion, as he enters with Charlotte, the would be lover, when Daniel saves the day, just as the hero was trying hard to think of how to introduce the strange woman, his friend walks in and pretends she is his partner.

Perhaps in a French quirky manner, Charlotte declares after this incident that the protagonist had lied, said he was single, without kids and she has just learned he has a wife and two big girls, he cannot ride and yet she is so attracted to him, wants to see him without clothes

“Mais vous dites nu, quoi” says the hero

Therefore, they make love in the woman’s apartment, next to the Arch of Triumph, where the husband returns home unexpectedly, the wife runs for the clothes, sends the lover to the terrace of the highest floor of the building, where poor Etienne remains stranded, in a bathrobe, in plain view of the television cameras that naturally arrive at the scene