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Les Patates
1969 War / Comedy / Drama
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Credits
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Director: Claude Autant-Lara
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Script: Jean Aurenche, Claude Autant-Lara, Jacques Vaucherot (novel)
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Photo: Michel Kelber
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Music: Pierre Perret
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Cast: Pierre Perret (Clovis Parizel),
Henri Virlojeux (Parizel père),
Bérangère Dautun (Mathilde),
Christine Aurel (La voyageuse),
Pascale Roberts (Fifine),
Jacques Balutin (P'tit Louis),
Gérard Buhr (Serge),
Marc Eyraud (Maurice),
René Havard (Lulu),
Lucien Hubert (Guignard),
Bernard La Jarrige (Le maire),
Hubert de Lapparent (Bayochet),
Jeanne Allard (Paulette),
Rufus (Larobesse)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 100 min
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Summary
France, 1942. During the Nazi Occupation, the Ardennes falls in the "forbidden zone"
between the German Occupied North and the Vichy governed South. Its inhabitants
face starvation as movement of people and supplies into the area are strictly controlled.
To save his family, Clovis risks his life crossing the boundary to get hold of potatoes
which he intends to plant in a patch of unused land. Knowing that his family’s survival
depends on the success of his scheme, Clovis becomes increasingly obsessed with his crop
of potatoes…
Review
In the twilight of his career, director Claude Autant-Lara returned to the subject of
one of his earlier great films,
La Traversée de Paris (1956).
Both films portray life under Nazi occupation with a curious mixture of harsh realism
and wry humour, and both provide an uncompromising testimony of the hardship and humiliation
endured by most ordinary French people at that time. Although Les
Patates is a modest work in comparison with Autant-Lara’s earlier achievements,
it is not without its charms. When it was first released, the director’s popularity
had waned considerably (thanks largely to negative press from the reactionaries on Les
Cahiers du cinéma, Truffaut et al.), and the film was ridiculed by the critics,
somewhat unfairly.
© James Travers 2007
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