poison, diappearance and the desire to be free

Durand is perhaps something of an acquired taste, particularly for non-Europeans. Even the English may struggle a bit with a cultural context that is extremely French. This is a wonderful comedy whose libertarian themes will continue to resonate in French films for years to come. There is on the one hand the trope (more than a shade misogynistic, it must be said) whereby the married state is equated with unfreedom - as later in Renoir's La Chienne and Boudu sauvé ds Eaux and Sacha Guitry's La Poison. Normally the wife is the living symbol of that unfreedom. The word for "poison" in French is masculine ("le poison") except in one traditional usage where it refers quite sepcifically to "the wife". The opposite of that unfreedom is to some extent the carefree bachelor life (as in Quine's How to Murder your Wife which however ends up having quite the opposite moral as does a perfectly awful modern US adaptation of Boudu sauvé de eaux called... oh, forget what it is called, it is unwatchable rubbish). But it is also often the "vagabond" state (free that is to say not only from the wife and marriage but from all social restraint), here represented by the truculent Gaston Modot character, Charles, with whom Onésime takes refuge, but to be found also in La Chienne, Boudu sauvé des eaux and René Clair's A nous la liberté. A quite different concept of the tramp from that of Chaplin, where the tramp-character, although truculent in the early films and sometimes mildly rebellious, actually yearns for a conformist existence - employment, marriage, family, even wealth. All the things in fact that the French tramp is seeking to escape from.

So this anarchistic vein is the counterpart of the zany style of comedy (the policeman ineptly disguised as chorus-girls are just fabulous) that makes Durand's films such a special treat for those culturally in tune with them.

It helps perhaps ot appreciate that the word "disparition" in French means both "disappearnance" ad "deth" according to context. "Il a disparu" means he has disappeared; "il est disparu" means "he has passed away".Faked deaths also figure in La Chienne and Boudu sauvé des eaux and are another important element in the anarchist fantasy. The "disparition" could take the form of actually vanishing as in Marcel Aymé's short story L'Homme qui n'existait plus but in another Marcel Aymé story, whose title I forget, a man who dsiappears to escape his dull life is found later to have simply recreated a life very similar elsewhere, a wonderful ironic commentary on the anarchist fantasy.

The comedy genre refers to a category of entertainment that aims to amuse and entertain audiences by using humor, wit, and comedic situations. Comedies are created with the primary intention of eliciting laughter and providing lighthearted enjoyment. They encompass a wide range of styles, tones, and themes, appealing to various tastes and audiences.

Will Ferrell, Angela Grillo, and Lap-Gei Cheung in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

The short form refers to creative works characterized by their brevity and concise storytelling. Unlike full-length feature films, short films have a running time of less than 45 minutes, while TV shorts have a running time of less than 22 minutes.

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To get away from his shrewish wife, Onesime fakes his own drowning. But the "widow" hires a shady detective to find out if he is alive.

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La disparition d'Onésime

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