Small victories and great success
2023 was a rich year for French cinema, celebrated at festivals including the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Anatomy of a fallstill in the running for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with The passion of Dodin Bouffantcounting the successes of genre cinema such as The Animal Kingdomfirst successful feature films with Break dog AND The kidnappingetc..
A hit in all styles and genres, and even in the so-called “rural” comedy.a stunning genre in which we often find mediocre productions that play on provincial clichés.
In fact, with Small victoriesreleased in theaters on March 1, 2023, Mélanie Auffret writes and directs a very successful comedy about rural desertificationcentered on a mayor and teacher of a small village (Julia Piaton) and an illiterate craftsman (Michel Blanc) who returns to school.
His synopsis: Between her duties as mayor and her role as a teacher in the small village of Kerguen, Alice’s days are already busy. Her arrival in Emile’s class, a sixty-year-old with an explosive character, finally determined to learn to read and write, will make his daily life unmanageable. Above all that Alice, who had not foreseen anything, will also have to save her village and her school.
A deserved success
This is only his second feature film after that Rossano in 2019, but Mélanie Auffret knows what she’s doing. Her first film, with Guillaume de Tonquédec and Léa Drucker, attracted 314,000 spectators to theaters. Small victories almost done three times betterfor these are more than 925,000 spectators who discovered it in cinemas.
The key to success? A story shot on a character level, which takes its problems as seriously as fspace to laugh and move people to propose a reflection. Mélanie Auffret has in fact dealt with a very real phenomenon, that of rural desertification and the survival of small villages, where the mayor actually carries out various jobs, where schools close and where a whole part of the population finds itself isolated.
His writing is precise, sincere and affectionate, and Small victories it is the exact opposite of condescending comedies that play on the contrast between urban and rural populations.
And a touching duet
The other great quality of comedy Small victories is its duo of main actors, formed by Julia Piaton – for whom this is the first leading role in a feature film – and Michel Blanc, a great actor, known as much for his work with the Splendid troupe as for his great performances dramatic. In Mélanie Auffret’s film, they embody individuals who must leave their “perimeter”, which they must take the risk of emancipating themselves from the physical and mental place in which routine has placed them.
She is Alice, teacher of the only class in this village and mayor of this same village, and her busy days prevent her from imagining another life. He is Émile, and if he imagined another life for himself, he never really left the confines of the village, not knowing how to read or write. While the only school class risks closing due to lack of students, Émile decides to enroll to finally learn to read and write, and at the same time try to save the school…
These two actors of Small victories they are brilliant – as are the supporting cast around them -, and together they tell a touching, authentic, often very funny and moving story in the end. A nice surprise when it was released in cinemas, and a wonderful promise for the next feature film by Mélanie Auffret, a young screenwriter and director who is certainly very talented.
Source: Cine Serie
Ray Ortiz is a journalist at Gossipify, known for his coverage of trending news and current events. He is committed to providing readers with accurate and unbiased reporting, and is respected for his ability to keep readers informed on the latest news and issues.
