Le Cinema de Papa

A film set in France. Claude is a furrier's son. The family runs a small workshop in Paris. His father Charles sews furs. The same work for years. His son does not want the trade. He wants to get into films. His father is against it. A trade is a trade; cinema is not work. From there the film is a story of insistence. Claude takes small parts. Extra work, a few lines, an advertisement. He earns nothing. His father gives him work. He works in the shop and goes to auditions in the evening. Then he has an idea. He will make his own film. He needs money. He goes to his father. The man gives it. But on one condition: he will act in it. From there the film becomes a story about a shoot. The father is on set. He forgets his line, looks at the camera, and talks constantly. The crew is patient. The film is finished. And it wins a prize. What the narrative is interested in is not cinema but approval: its idea is that all Claude's effort is so his father will take him seriously, and that the approval comes only at the end. The father is drawn with measure. He is not coarse; he is afraid his son will go hungry. The narrative is autobiographical. Claude Berri really was a furrier's son and entered cinema this way. The director is telling his own story and the character carries his own name. Yves Robert plays his father. Berri appears in a small part. The tone is light and nostalgic. The narrative turns bitter nowhere. The period detail is careful. Paris in the fifties and sixties, the workshop, the neighbourhood and the studios. Yves Robert, Alain Cohen, Claude Berri and Nathalie Roussel are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes French cinema and autobiographical narrative. Who it is not for: anyone looking for structure; the narrative is a series of memories and the plot is thin.