Ridicule (1996)

Let's be realistic.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

To get royal backing on a needed drainage project, a poor French lord must learn to play the delicate games of wit at court at Versailles.Now, I know what I am supposed to enjoy about this film is the game of wits played between all these wealthy French folks. And to a certain extent I do. I really enjoyed the rhyming contest, for example. And it made me wonder how the translator handled that, because the subtitles rhymed, but could not possibly have matched the original French.But what I actually liked most was the diving suit. That may be stupid, but as a genre fan, I love seeing makeup and costumes, and this old suit really looked great... sort of a sea monster meets robot look to it. Very cool.

Court of Louis XVI 6 years prior to the Bastille. A country Baron Gregoire Ponceludon de Malavoy wants to drain swamps on his land and needs help from the government he is turned down and appeals to the King. What trying to do that was like is the gist of the film.Wonderful portrayal of the decadent lives lived by courtesans at that time. Wit (Esprit) was an admired quality often leading to-- Ridicule--of the victim(s). There are too many wonderful scenes to count but here is where the movie messes up = it gets into womens lib (Matilde the scientist) and social justice themes (the deaf) too much they were not needed and extremely unlikely.Although life at Versailles was exaggerated that can go as an artistic point (to make things funnier and more outrageous)...but the odds of Ponceludon succeeding in his swamp work during the decade after the revolution are zero.If you can over look these story flaws it is an entertaining movie.Recommend

ONLY ONE SPOILER: When I searched the internet for reviews of this movie, I found several reviews by male movie reviewers who seemed to feel outrage, shock and disgust at the opening scene. I thought to myself, how bad could this be? I mean, what DON'T they show in movies these days? Should I allow my teenage children to see the film? What WAS this scene, and were there more like it? No review was specific as to answering my questions, so my husband and I watched it alone. Here is what that one scene is: A rather graphic scene (zoomed in and lasting a couple of seconds) of a nobleman's genitalia as he is urinating on an aged, disabled nobleman who had ridiculed him some 30 years earlier. Perhaps the outrage, shock and disgust felt by these male reviewers was due to the fact that instead of the typical female nudity we see everywhere in movies, for once we saw graphic male nudity. Who would've thought men to be so prudish? Now, before all you men out there attempt to perform your own version of witty repartee' and strike back at these comments, allow me to add that yes, while this one scene was graphic and shocking, that it was not done for the sake of shock, but rather to show what lengths people in positions of power went to in order to "protect" their own positions and sabotage that of others, ranging from ridicule and humiliation to violence and death. While I do not condone gratuitous nudity for the sake of pornography, I do feel this one scene accurately sets the tone of the tale and has meaning in it's ending.For some time I could not understand how the plight of so many French citizens could be so desperate and full of starvation and death while the wealthy did not suffer the same fate, and why nobody did anything to change this. If the portrayal of those in positions of power and wealth in this movie was depicted accurately, it is easy to understand how a once great country failed it's citizens when power and choice was held by those who were selfish, lazy, and possibly worse - silly. King Louis XVI has been written to be by many accounts, a man not able to rule, passive, indifferent to those around him near and far, and unable to repair the damage done by his predecessors, especially King Louis XIV when also abandonment of reason and over indulgence were the rule of the day.Along with the beautiful countryside, architecture and decor, costumes (couldn't they give "poor" Mathilde more than two dresses to wear during the entire film?) and great depiction of human nature and our inherent weaknesses, this movie was very entertaining and for me much more enjoyable than "Valmont"/"Dangerous Liaisons" to which it has been compared. While "Valmont"/"Dangerous Liaisions" also contained the above attributes, "Ridicule" contained an important element they did not - well developed characters and plot.

Ridicule is a French film which takes place in 1783, a few years before Louis XVI lost the ability to wear a hat; where "...in this country, vices are without consequence, but ridicule can kill." The film is about the effect of wit and word play on people's lives and careers. Malicious, mannered and highly enjoyable. Charles Berling, Jean Rochefort, Bernard Giraudeau and Fanny Ardant are excellent. A man would be a fool not to want to bed Ardant, and even more a fool to trust her. The love affair between Berling and his deep-diving sweetheart is amusing and endearing.The film is sumptuously mounted. The dialogue is so clever a knowledge of French might be in order, but the English subtitles do a superb job of conveying the witty, cruel, self-serving word play.