The Cabbage Soup

Two old men in the French countryside, Le Glaude and Le Bombe, live without bothering anyone. One night the noise of a contest they hold in the garden draws a visitor from space. The visitor tastes their cabbage soup and decides he has never eaten anything like it. In the same period a new housing development arrives in the area and the pair's arrangement is about to be knocked down. The offer is on the table: come to his planet Oxo and live comfortably to the age of two hundred. Jean Girault directed. The source is Rene Fallet's 1980 novel, adapted by Louis de Funes with Jean Halain. De Funes stars, alongside Jean Carmet and Jacques Villeret. Raymond Lefevre wrote the music. It opened on 2 December 1981 and was one of the last two films de Funes made. The box office was 23.2 million dollars. The theme became an event in its own right in France and has been remixed and reissued many times since. Although it is remembered as a science fiction comedy its real subject is elsewhere: the emptying of the countryside and the displacement of old people. The ending is not a grand escape but a surrender. Who it is for: viewers who like French popular comedy and de Funes. Who it is not for: anyone expecting science fiction. The alien is a pretext and the film is really about two old men losing their home.