Director: Bernard Campan, Alexandre Jollien
Year: 2021
Duration: 92 min.
Country: France, Switzerland
Cast: Bernard Campan, Alexandre Jollien, Maryline Canto, Laëtitia Eïdo
Script: Bernard Campan, Alexandre Jollien, Helene Gremillon
Genre: Comedy drama.
Music: Niklas Paschburg
Photography: Christophe Offenstein
companies: Coproducción Francia-Suiza; Pan Européenne Production, France 3 Cinéma, Apollo Films, Les Productions JMH, ABS, Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), SRG SSR Idée Suisse
Distributor in Spain : Caramel Films
Premiere in Spain: May 13, 2022
Original version: French with Spanish subtitles
2022: Malaga Film Festival: International Premieres – Audience Award
SYNOPSIS
Louis runs a funeral home. Confirmed bachelor, he lives dedicated to his work. By a chance of life, one day he meets Igor, a sharp spirit in a handicapped body due to cerebral palsy. Igor hands out organic vegetables while spending his free time reading Socrates, Nietzsche and Spinoza. Together they will embark on a journey in Louis’s hearse to transport the body of the late Madeleine to the place where she is to be buried…
THE CRITICISM
“Delicious, shot through with southern air and photographic warmth, the film conveys truthfulness and joy, striking the right balance between the tender, the pathetic and the comic”
The premise may be familiar and inevitably refers to Untouchable, a model that has been repeated over and over again. But Beautiful Minds is not just a good-hearted and condescending story about the friendship between two men who belong to different spheres and end up understanding each other. In this case, that friendship is also real, the one that the comedian Bernard Campan and the philosopher Alexandre Jollien have maintained for more than two decades. And, although it is not necessary for us to know that information when we see the film, in some imperceptible way, that affection that they profess ends up slipping through the cracks of each one of the images.
Wonderful Minds claims the difference and does so through humor and empathy. Campan plays a man who runs a funeral company and is always sulking and Jollien has cerebral palsy and his essence is luminous. A fortuitous meeting will make them travel companions and they will embark on a road movie in which there is room for adventures, but also for existential reflections through Jollien’s perspective, who will apply philosophy to small and large human problems. . In this sense, in few films have the references to Socrates, Nietzsche or Spinoza been clearer and more revealing.
The film addresses prejudices, the gaze of the other, touches on sensitive issues and does so in a deeply transparent way, without impostures, without condescension. Their journey is both entertaining and comforting, revealing the characters’ weaknesses as well as their strengths on their way to better understand themselves and others.
NEXT ACTIVITIES
- June 9 7:30 p.m.: FRANKENWEENIE by Tim Burton (Medium-length film 26min)
(Place: Benalmádena Costa Exhibition Center)
Collaboration within the exposición de Irene Mala. Tim Burton Territory
- June 15 7:30 p.m.: STORIES PAR NOT TO TELL by Cesc Gay
It narrates situations in which we can recognize ourselves and that we would prefer not to explain, or even forget. Unexpected encounters, ridiculous moments or absurd decisions, five stories with an acid and compassionate look at the inability to govern our own emotions
