Saturday night, I had the pleasure to attend the US premiere of a French film that needs to be seen elsewhere on US shores, and not just on video or at festivals. I couldn't stand the idea of an American remake either, so it straight up just has to get released.
The man-boys of Camping a la ferme.
Camping a la Ferme (translated as Country Meets Hood) follows a French social worker named Amar and a six pack of juvenile delinquents he takes on a community service trip to the French countryside. Amar's charges range from a cell phone-addicted city boy to a couple hip-hop enthusiasts and a recent convert to Islam. Another of the boys is thrust upon Amar by a mother who professes prison to be the only solution for her son, and all of them are resistant to hard work and reforming themselves.
The journey they all follow would remind most people my age of the dynamic present in The Breakfast Club, but with stark cultural and racial overtones. The six boys all start out despising one another, but grow to understand and respect where they all came from (Algeria, France, Sicily, Austria, and a couple more places are named).
Do not, however, mistake this as some fluff "social message" movie by any means. The boys use language and insults that are at once crude and entirely believable coming from the mouths of modern youths. Amar himself got into social work because he himself was in the boys' position once as well, and glimpses into that Amar come through at times in hilariously smart and naughty jokes that he tells.
The Mayor (Nadine Marcovici), Amar (Roschdy Zem), Assane (Aghmane Ibersiene), and Mr. 72 Seasons (Robert Rollis), who has harvested all 72 of those years.
Amar and the boys arrive at the farm of the fetching Anais, her disabled younger brother Leo, and their prejudiced father only to find their tents not in their van. After an awkward exchange and an act of good faith, the boys bunk down in the barn.
From that very moment, their lives begin to be directly affected by their immersion in how this "other half" lives. Hard work, raging hormones, and hidden benevolent natures mix together and by the end form a very different image of these young men than we'd initially expect.
Too often in the United States, we see film released for a "wide" (mostly white) or an "urban" (black), or an "artsy" (discerning) crowd. The crowd Saturday night was full of french speakers, english speakers, spanish speakers, and even a number who'd never seen a film in french other than Amelie.
No one I spoke to afterward so much as had a minor criticism of the film, and most praised it as "having the balls American films usually don't" or something to that effect. Country Meets Hood chooses to say what we consider inappropriate and provocative and plays it all off as naturally as we all experience it in our everyday lives.
It's rare to see a film in any language as up-front with the issue of racial strife, especially in the alleged Age of Tolerance we live in currently. I'm sure there are minor plot holes he more cynical among us would chastise me for missing, or a performance that was played too broadly, but the audience was too wrapped up in the social dynamics of the plot for it to bother them.
Screenwriter and French government minister Azouz Begag was present for the screening, and made a short introduction to the film in addition to holding a lively Q&A afterward. Mr. Begag's visit was sponsored by FSU's Winthrop-King Institute for French and Francophone Studies, who had previously sponsored a screening of Begag's Le gone du Chabaa (The Kid from Chabaa or Shantytown Kid).
Begag's first film script (Chabaa) was inspired by his own experience growing up impoverished, and this film reflects his impression of France as an adult looking in to the lives of this generation of ethnic minorities coming of age in France.
Amar's community service trip doesn't resemble the story or style of Au hasard Balthazar in any way aside from the presence of a donkey, I promise.
Begag prefaced the film by relating to the audience what he considers France's biggest problem: ethnic divides along geographic boundaries. The greatest benefit any French youth could experience, no matter his or her background, is to go out and meet these "others". Just as white suburbanites seem to have an ingrained fear of anyone any more naturally dark-skinned than they are, ethnic minorities are equally as scared of the whites living on their version of "the other side."
The film represents Begag's effort to get these youths from vastly different backgrounds to go out and meet one another, crossing geographic and cultural borders, no matter how difficult it may seem at first.
The nuance of the dialogue is every bit as rich as that in the french language, evident in the fine attention to detail throughout the picture. Subtle touches keep the film lively. One of the boys wears a jacket emblazoned with the image and name of Tony Montana from Scarface (a nod to hip-hop culture's influence on Europe), or the priest who forever has yet another funeral to perform in the sleepy country town full of old people. Sex relations and flirting are portrayed every bit as awkward as in real life, just as spontaneous and believably ridiculous. There are a couple minute cuts that could be made to trim a couple shots that linger a bit too long, but that's the sign of having to try finding something to really criticize.
The most deeply-felt scene in the movie centers around a men's gathering where they discuss the meaning of love. The terrible deficiency highlighted most in this scene is the lack of father figures in so many boys' lives, as even the oldest among them (Amar) relates to the others as peers. The whole group of them lack a central male guide, so they rely upon one another as a group instead.
Among my favorite bits of info dropped at the post-show Q&A was a potential concept for a followup, which, when you finish watching the film, you want it to be precisely as Begag described it.
Camping a la ferme opened on 29 June in Europe on 205 screens, coming in 5th behind Madagascar, Les poupees russes (:the Russian Puppets", a sequel to L'auberge Espagnole in its third week), Batman Begins, and Star Wars III. Only Madagascar and Poupees had higher per-screen averages that week, and in the following week, Camping maintained its position with a drop of just over 10%, outdoing Star Wars. It could be a hit here, I really think so.
This movie needs to play in more festivals across the states. Someone pick it up, please...even as a straight to DVD.