Comme des voleurs (à l'est) (2006) Reviews

• Madcap comedy about a Swiss who wants to become a Pole

  rasecz2007-04-29

  Lionel Baier (playing himself) is a young gay Swiss who finds out his grandfather came from Poland. He is suddenly smitten by everything Polish. One day he meets an illegal immigrant Polish girl, Ewa. He breaks up with his boyfriend and decides to marry Ewa so she won't be deported from Switzerland. Lucie is Lionel's sister. While Lionel is a dreamer, Lucie has feet planted squarely on the ground. She is not pleased with Lionel's plan. On the spur of the moment she drives away with Lionel -- "comme des voleurs" -- heading for Poland -- "a l'Est". Presumably this is to convince Lionel to change his mind about the Polish girl. At this point we begin a mix of road movie, adventure, and personal discovery where the story of the grandfather is revealed. The implicit joke in this madcap comedy is a Swiss wanting to become a Pole. Preposterous, people in Poland would say. Emigration is almost exclusively in the opposite direction. A well-made movie except for a number of, sometimes jarring, continuity flaws. All the music, except for the pop song heard over the end credits, is by Ravel. The director states that he likes to use one composer per film. He felt Ravel gave the perfect mood to this story and I agree one hundred percent. Great choice. The director also says that he chooses the composer first then writes the screenplay. The story is a mix of autobiography and fiction. Cost: one million euros.

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• A movie anyone can relate to

  WendyTestaburger2007-01-30

  A good swiss movie is rare enough, so I can only recommend this one. Basically, the story starts in Lausanne, Switzerland. Lionel is gay and his whole family is fine with it, he works at the local radio station. Around Christmas, he discover that part of his family comes from Poland. He gets totally upset with it, to a point where his sister decides to take him to Poland, in order for him to discover this country he comes from. This movie is just really authentic. All the characters are really touching, and you can relate to a lot of situations. Being gay or straight isn't the matter here, the idea is just to witness how a simple information can turn your way of thinking upside down. Overall : part romantic, part touching, part funny... A bit slow now and then, but that's the only negative point I could find... Very good movie!

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• "Long live Poland, for without Poland there would be no Poles!"

  sandover2009-11-10

  is a phrase lifted from Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi, a text that is mentioned early in the film, and sets, in a kind of connoisseur's way, the tone of the film, somewhat mad-cap comedy, albeit in an understated way, which is also the way it explains a lot of what happens in the film, and why. Lionel, played by his namesake actor and director, is a Swiss who grows a sudden infatuation with his supposed Polish origins; he starts having Polish lessons, reads into the literature of the country, and a random meeting with a Polish girl begins a show-down with elements of road-movie, political commentary, bildungs-roman and love-story in a rich and loose texture. Why does he neglect his boyfriend, climbing through small sordid gestures even to contempt of his sexual identity? He admits that his, their well organized life, home, weekends proves suffocating for him. And here is where and why I would like to go back to the phrase from Jarry's Ubu Roi, because the text pops up form a jotting in his journal that the boyfriend happens to read, one of the two or three jottings we happen to listen to that contrast the straightforward texture of the film. The childish truism is effective for it demonstrates that, well, simply, this is not the case. It suits Switzerland more, and this is, I argue, the hidden sub-text of much that happens on screen; I think that Lionel is frustrated by what being in a country of one thousand years of peace means: he works for a Swiss institution, the Swiss radio, and this is the first shot in the film (after the foggy introduction with the horse in the river); his sister works in the immigration office, and that comes up when they find themselves penniless, with "their" car stolen (note the delicious caricature of the film's themes by the girl that wants to fight capitalism in a hilariously unconvincing way): their misunderstandings, we find out, are not so much familial, or sexual identity ones, they are rather political, and in an even more profound level, questions of memory, and which side one is on. If she stubbornly defends real life causes, her brother reminds her real life (after a scene where she describes him as the one having issues with reality and who wants to side with fantasy)can never simply be real life, it is all a question of adventure. The ever so even sum of real life, spills over into the realm of what adventure makes memory, family, love to be. And thus, she can put into work what she has learned from the immigration office, and procure them with clothes, money and a passport (immagine, a passport for a Swiss!). So, replace Poland with Switzerland in the phrase: it remains equally absurd, yet becomes more rancid. And sly. The logic of it is so simple, that becomes full-hearted. Standing on top of its spin, the reversal of so many preconceptions re-establishes things. Take, for example, as another reviewer pointed, the way the director proceeds: first the composer of the sound-track, then the scenario. I find this admirable: how can one proceed like that? What is the purpose? And what does it mean? Ravel, in this case, is alarmingly fitting. As he was once termed the "mechanical Frenchman", it demonstrates what a sound-track is about: is it about muffling, high-lighting, standing in for the tensions? Ravel, I would dare to say, seems almost like a Swiss clockmaker:his melodies go perfectly from tick to tack, as a clock stands comme un voleur of time, stealing not real life exactly, but setting the tone for an adventurous comedy.

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