Beau Pere (1981)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Separated from his stepdaughter, raised for eight years as his own, after the girl's mother dies in a car crash, a pianist begins to mistake his fatherly affection towards her for romantic love, which causes a problem since the girl feels the same way and is set on taking her mother's place in this controversial Bertrand Blier film. The movie is actually far less sleazy than it might sound from the outset; there is relatively little in the way of nudity and lovemaking with the film instead focused on the mental dynamics between the pair, neither quite sure how properly express their strong feelings for one another. Things seem to get even more interesting as the girl's birth father catches on to how intimate the pair have become since the mother's death, and yet the film's meandering second half does the material no justice. There is so much build-up and tension leading up to the pair taking things too far that the film has trouble refocusing afterwards. That said, the movie ends on a pitch perfect suggestive final note. The gliding cinematography courtesy of the legendary Sacha Vierny is also excellent throughout with mirrored surfaces nicely favoured for a film about two individuals forced to reflect upon themselves. Blier additionally uses an interesting technique of having a handful of characters talk to the camera to provide narration, though the inconsistency of the narration is a tad jarring.

I was 14 years old and traveling to Florida and we spent the night in a hotel. I was up late watching HBO when this movie came on. As I sat and watched it I was mesmerized by Patrick Deweare! The movie and his performance touched something very deep in me, I became an instant fan of his and the memory of that movie stayed with me for years. I purchased the movie as an adult. I think it was the deep sadness that emanated from him, just the sad looks he would convey without actually speaking. I love this movie as much today as I did at 14, which at that time I did not know that he had just died. With the advent of the Internet I was able to find out much more about this man who's performance haunted me and learned where that sadness came from.

Spoilers herein.Nabokov's "Lolita" is a milestone in literature -- the narrator is obsessed to the point where anything he says is at least synthesized out of that obsession and at worse fabricated. It is only about sex in so far as giving a focus to the obsession of being.Here we have a very clever converse. Yes we have the stepdaughter, the "artistic" stepfather widowed by a car wreck and the copulation between the two. We have a child with the flue, and a key message delivered in writing. Performance permeates.The difference between that message in the book and this film mirrors the difference between the perspective of the two. In "Lolita," the reading of the diary comes immediately before the accident and is unintended. Here it comes immediately after and is.The story this time is from the girl's perspective. She is the one with the obsession and the seductive initiative. It is he that is wrapped up in performance and who is tempted away by a superior performer. Just this depth of understanding of such a radical experiment in narrative colors this film as something worth watching. (The designated watcher in this version is the redheaded wife of a fellow musician.)But otherwise, the film is a pedestrian affair. A few titillations, a few comedic moments, some sweetness. In other words, it carries all the baggage of a normal French film. It is bereft of, say, the lepidopteran -- or similar -- metaphors, the constant shifts in narrative layers (by this time, 1981, by no means experimental) and the references outside the film.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.

Blier is not my favorite French director. Too much irony and too much Godard-a-like in his films. But this one is very different. It's written with great intelligence and, like in most of the French Cinema, it had a wonderful sense of reality. The subject is touchy : a man falls in love with a young teenager (14 years old). But here, we have not the classic Lolita. The young girl looks realistic, and so is her feelings. Superb acting and a great musical score.