The film “Prepare Your Handkerchiefs”, 1977, the genre of which is designated as drama, melodrama, comedy, however, after watching this film, I still thought about this classification, although elements are present, but there is a significant amount of satire in the plot, and also uses one rather risky technique that could be attributed to the category of pedophilia, if it were not presented from such a sharply satirical angle. So, a young couple lives, husband Raoul (J. Depardieu) madly loves his wife Solange (Carol Lore), who has lost absolutely any interest in life, even food, no longer smiles, she is constantly having inexplicable seizures, she is able only to knit endless, in the context of this film having symbolic meaning, sweaters. And he, as it seems to him, finds a solution to the problem by “giving” his wife to the first person he meets (P. Devar), then the second, etc., but no one is able to bring Solange to a normal state, but in the end such a subject will still be found, but who he will be, will be for everyone a great surprise, for some almost a tragedy. Do you wonder what the author’s message was?
You know, sometimes there are weird coincidences in life. This morning, I couldn’t remember the title of one movie I saw about a year ago – it was ‘The Black Series’, which I’ll be writing about later. This is a tragic, heavy film, referring to classical Russian literature, namely, crime and punishment, but this is not the point now.
Desperate to remember the name of this project, I began to flip through the pages of the notebook with the films recorded in it and settled on a project called Prepare Your Handkerchiefs. The name didn’t tell me anything, I was even surprised, because I didn’t remember why it was on my list, I couldn’t remember what it was or what it was about. This happens to me very rarely, so being damn intrigued, out of curiosity, I decided to watch this movie. And, God, I'm sorry. It turned out to be a stunning tragicomedy straight from France of the 70s, with a young Gerard Depardieu, the beautiful Carole Laure and the charming Patrick Dever.
Stop.
Patrick Dever is a familiar name and a familiar face. So it is - this is the same performer of the main role in the already mentioned film "Black series"! Amazing.
But I think that it is not necessary to focus too much on this, no more than a funny fact, the blessing of "Prepare your handkerchiefs" provides us with a lot of food for thought.
In the story, we meet a young couple - Raul (Depardieu) and Solange (Laure). He is a young and successful, successful man, madly loving his beautiful wife, and she is apathetic and strange. Who for a month is not interested in anything, she does not eat, she does not laugh, she is not interested in anything. All her pastime comes down to cleaning and knitting a sweater for Raoul. Raul, not understanding what is happening, thinks that the whole thing is that she is tired of his face and he makes the absurd decision that a new partner is the best way out. And without hesitation, he offers his wife to the first person he meets, who, sitting at the next table, has long looked at the pretty Solange.
That's the whole thing. But I can give a small spoiler - the new guy did not help her even though it was a brilliant Patrick Dever, even he did not manage to bring a charming lady out of the abyss of depression, all he achieved was a strong friendship with Raul, who turned out to be a lousy husband, but a wonderful friend, and, of course, a new sweater tied by his own sweet Solange.
These two strangle her with their care and futile attempts to make her happy, even though they have no idea what she wants, what a woman wants. But one day she meets a boy, smart beyond his years and very lonely. He is surrounded by the care of his parents, who overprotect him, although they do not even know what a teenager at thirteen wants. They found a soul mate in each other. Yes, in Bertrand Blier’s film, love between a grown woman and a young boy is possible, but it is worth understanding that this is nothing but piercing satire. Satire on men, on relationships, but not on love.
The baby speaks the truth, not without reason, because it was the boy who managed to find an approach to the woman’s heart, which was not possible for two friends-friends. Sincerity, charm, and irony all lead to this movie, but having sex with kids is pretty weird.
The plot is based on the famous question: what does a woman want? Brunette Solange (Carol Lore) can not emotionally wake up not her husband Raul (Depardieu), nor his friend Stefan (Devaer), nor each other’s neighbor. At the end of the picture, the question is still allowed...
The mystery of female desire is not a metaphor for social problems. This is a really valuable problem that occupies the heroes of Bertrand Blieu a whole layer. How does the female brain work, how does all this sensitive mechanism called “woman” work?
I can tell you about Solange, it's not just a bore. Look at this. Angel. How can you abandon such a gentle creature? Look at the vein, how it beats. Have you ever wondered what is going on inside a woman sleeping next to you? At night. Blood circulates through thousands of tubules. They are as thick as hairs. The heart works like a pump. Slowly. A whole factory working slowly. She's defenseless. Anyone can hurt her. You touch her. She's turning around. Her pulse is starting to beat harder. Don't you think we have an obligation to protect this wonderful machine? So fragile. Careful! She's dreaming.
According to Lacan, female frigidity is not the absence of desire, but the orientation to some ideal (lost, imaginary, etc.) object of desire. From the inside of male self-love and snobbery, of course, it is difficult to understand that the choice offered to a woman (from her precious persona and that, the second, absolutely useless option) is, to put it mildly, not at all an ideal choice. A woman often does not reflect on this topic: due to cultural and historical traditions, she convinces herself of the correctness of marriage, the “objective” attractiveness of her man, etc. The gap between “given” and “required” only increases. The usual reproaches and claims of a woman, in the spirit of “you are not gentle enough and attentive!”, “do something special and romantic!” – this is the requirement of fantasy to reality. It is the unconscious feeling (psychoanalytically obvious) of the fact that your chosen one does not reach your dreams. After all, in the end, nothing interesting except masculine chauvinism, narcissism and a bad orgasm, a man can not give a woman. Very touching, for example, how, winning attention and pretending to love, Stefan “gives” Karol a collection of musical records and books. However, through the prism of a woman’s desire, this is a truly shitty, and even mocking, gift. Therefore, this attempt to revive Karol ends in disaster:
Something's wrong with her. I'm doing everything I can to entertain her. No use. You can't make her smile. It's impossible to talk to her. It's like she lives through strength. I don't know what to do! I leave her all my records, she doesn't listen to them. I don't read books. She doesn't want anything.
The real problem, again, is that even the retarded and ever-sleeping beauty, Karol, is also radical about her desires. Just her rebellion against reality is a quiet Gandhist non-resistance and hunger strike. In any case, tactically a woman (as in most other Blieu films) outplays men. At the end of all the adventures, Karol receives a rare and valuable object of desire - an underage intellectual boy. Of course, for moral critics, this is again scandal and audacity. Would these critics know how cool it will be in the next Blieu stories!
Paradoxical lesson, from the heroes of “Platochki”: love your neighbor’s wife as your own! And believe me, your neighbor's wife needs it!
10 out of 10
“Duels are over, the 21st century is on the nose...” – said Raul – the hero of Gerard Depardieu, who thereby tried to convince everyone around, including himself, that moral foundations have changed. They say today is not ashamed to offer your woman to a completely unfamiliar, but pretty type, but in fact it was 1979.
"Prepare your handkerchiefs" is not only the title of the film, but also a call to action. Funny thing is, I didn't even know about the fact of winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1979, but who cares? A person who has watched this movie will think about the material values of the work of director Bertrand Blieu, which is why I write this review.
I am convinced that this is one of the few films in the history of cinema, which, both now and then, is perceived by people as completely breaking the internal views of man on the morality of the spectacle. The events of this picture very elegantly and intimately pull the viewer out for a private conversation with their “demons”, complexes and desires. What happens on the screen causes the most hidden thoughts that not everyone can and will want to work with. That is why many reject this film, not wanting to awaken in themselves trembling and sometimes frightening thoughts.
Each dialogue of this picture is written and played by the actors like the best desserts of world cooking, and if the viewer wants to succumb to the temptation and relax watching this film, then he will get the same pleasure that should give a movie.
Despite all the above words, the film does not look complicated in terms of artistic production. I wouldn’t call it an art house movie, because it’s made quite classically for that era of great French cinema. Of course, we will see a lot of bold and frank artistic decisions here, but is it bad at least sometimes to take a step aside?
This film should be watched by the viewer tired of the “factory” product, which is stamped by famous Hollywood studios. People who are not ready to accept stereotyped views, and who do not appreciate French cinema for many years, may experience discomfort during viewing due to their prejudices, but many overcome these internal barriers over time. I am not writing at all that the viewer must necessarily agree with the ideas of this film, because if you accepted the topic, you did not always support it, but in any case it is probably not worth considering such a movie too seriously. You can get very distracted from the creative component and go into the social and political wilds.
The filmmakers get to the point in many targets: from the helplessness of medicine to the destruction of former ideas about sexual relations. Besides, we are clearly shown how futile it is for men to try to understand women. And most importantly, all questions find answers. There is no sense of a semantic message to the void, since the plot develops, albeit in absolutely free, but not devoid of ideas structures.
And yet the main reason I think I put Prepare your handkerchiefs" in a series of cinema masterpieces, this is the actor's performance of Depardieu and Devaret, which hovers here at what unattainable heights. Scenes with their participation radiate inspiration, and the episode with listening to the music of Mozart will be remembered forever even for a critical viewer.
It was this film that convinced me that Gerard Depardieu is a great actor, not a star, not a celebrity, not a funny comedian or anyone else, namely an actor who masterfully performs roles. Of course, this is not the first and not even the tenth time when I see him in one or another role, both in popular and not very popular paintings of different times, but this character of Gerard is not at all like the others and does not fit with the usual image of Depardieu, and played incredibly truthful and harmoniously.
As for Patrick Devar, he can be considered as a partner of Depardieu, and you can as a separate star, but one way or another in all its forms he is genius. This actor played his roles as inspired as Beethoven or Mozart did his works, although for me Devar is more Beethoven than Mozart, and that doesn’t matter. Patrick was able to convey the mood of his characters through the screen as if he were right next to you. I cannot hide the fact that this is my favorite French actor, and by a wide margin from the rest.
Each review of the film with the participation of Patrick Devar, obliges to devote long praises to his talent, because the viewer who loved this actor will always miss him. I want to talk about Patrick, I want to look at Patrick. Only a genius can die young and leave a great legacy.
“We are modern people,” said Raul (Depardieu) when he persuaded Stefan (Devar) to help make his wife happy. The stranger was discouraged by this obscene proposal, but got involved in this role-playing game, which marked the beginning of an amazing story, which delightfully showed the creators of the film.
This movie will certainly cause different people to react differently, which is in my opinion its amazing advantage. On the screen, we see the lives of characters who will seem strange to each viewer, to put it mildly, but this does not create a difference in perception, but the fact that each person will examine these characters through his personal microscope, and make a unique conclusion.
The creators show us the ease with which one man confesses to platonic love for another man, so that he simply was next to his wife, and made her happy, the ease with which the husband goes to the second or even third plane, as long as his wife smiles, the ease with which men, not understanding what a woman needs, succumb to the most insane ideas to unravel her.
Doesn't that sound scary? Then "Prepare your handkerchiefs".
Cinema, despite the obvious Frenchness, made in some strongly not obvious, twisted form - remembering the plot, I can not understand what made me laugh; I watched a kind of comedy - well, quite funny - now I think: what's funny, actually? what's funny?
A fool has a frowning wife, and a fool finds a second fool to stir her up. Fools, moreover, seem very natural, lively, almost as if not exaggerated.
Probably amusing this stillborn love triangle - ' two morons is power' plus a mysterious autistic girl, whom morons stubbornly try to regain interest in life. Almost from the very beginning it became clear that the triangle is doomed, it is physically incapable of being ' love', but this is clear to the viewer, and the morons of the triangle save to the last, develop, invent adventures and empty experiences.
Well, while the fools are clumsily fussing, there is a clever snot and finally the girl dances - here by the way everything is predictable, because the film is very, very French; that is, even if a dog appeared instead of a snot - still, yes, it would be her direct participation in it to animate the triangle.
However, here is the moment: it seems that the snot was very lucky, danced the girl to fame without the initial prerequisites, everything is very good, but the girl is not simple - constantly and mystically knits the same sweaters, like cocoons - here are two fools walking around in these sweaters like twin brothers, and now the snot in a similar walks, and she sits and knits her cocoons. There is a hunch that the snot with an outstanding IQ is actually not very lucky, that soon he – when the insect girl ties up another sweater – will become the third fool-twin, just as selflessly restlessly enthusiastic as the first two.
Apparently, this laid-back motif with sweaters weathered all the comedy of the kin out of my head, there were open questions - to whom and how many more sweaters this spider ant will tie, how many fools will ultimately crawl around her stupidly.
Yes, comedy is a good French comedy. Seven stars (and I would like to put seven with half).
Bertrand Blier's film "Prepare Your Handkerchiefs."
A film about love, but very unusual, to some extent, I would even say provocative. The film is about trying to understand a loved one, about trying to make him happy, and about the monotony in our lives and a little bit about romance, the one that we so lack for real happiness.
Bertrand Blier, French director, son of famous actor Bernard Blier. The director is a rebel, makes films like a satire directed against the foundations of modern society, but if you come seriously, it is not quite satire, and not quite against it. However, handkerchiefs, which would not hurt to prepare, on the advice of Maestro Bliet, I can assure you no more than an elegant joke. It's not that simple in this story.
Raoul, / Gerard Depardieu / and Solange, / Carol Laure /, an ordinary French family. And like all ordinary French families, they have their own cause of unhappiness, Solange is sick. Doctors who treat it, take a lot of money, but do not give any consolation prognosis, except that hesitantly say that you should have a child. Depression. Raul is ready to do anything, she is even ready to give up her beloved to the first person she meets, as long as she smiles, just to know that she is happy. Case for takes a long wait, and sets him and Solange in a restaurant with a physical education teacher, Stefan. Raul turns to Stefan for help, and the love of two, unobtrusively turns into the love of three, then four, then ...
And then, Solange, neither smiled nor smiled, but knitted and knitted with a sweater. As if her happiness, somewhere near walks, looks into the window, but does not dare to enter. And the absurdity of the situation, meanwhile, heats up, and it seems, indeed, intentionally not invent.
You can’t think of it, but you can draw your conclusions if you want.
I mean, tying a sweater to a loved one is good. He'll be warm. His body will be warm. But there is also a soul, and here it is, the soul is not warmed with a sweater, and you will not warm if anything. A disease of the soul, it is not so easy to cure. They say love in such cases is the best medicine. They say that, but only a case of discord. Ask me what I'm suggesting, nothing. I'm just like Bliet trying to understand what your smile is, in other words, what is the secret of happiness.
Simple human happiness.
Bertrand Blier just cuts such a cozy French bourgeoisie with a knife. In fact, whether the main characters of the film belong to the bourgeoisie is no longer important. The important thing is that both the hero Depardieu and the hero Devaer live extremely comfortable. They no longer fight, they don’t stand on barricades, they don’t even shoot duels for women. In fact, they have everything they need. It is no coincidence that Depardieu's hero is interested in a real trifle - the joyful smile of his wife. And indeed, she has a seal of indifference on her face. Maslow's pyramid in action. But what do you do about it?
After all, as it is not surprising in a pair with Devaer hero Depardieu will be much happier than with his wife. And the wife will show the makings of a real primitive female - choose a man with the highest level of intelligence, high social rank and cash level. It's nuanced.
The script is perfect, the dialogues are excellent. Everything is on the verge of a foul, but the contrasts are such that it will not be possible to take seriously, and everything falls into the point. But with all this, the film turned out so shamelessly boring, protracted and unsophisticated. The last twenty minutes are so creepy, boring academics. What can you do, but due to such circumstances as “Oscar”, this film for some reason admired as one of the peaks in Bliet’s career. Nothing extraordinary to me. The same Vicente Aranda and Bigas Luna shot much more interesting pictures. As for Mr. Bertrand, “Waltzing,” “Evening Dress,” and especially “Cold Snacks” are several orders of magnitude stronger. For all genres are good except the boring.
4 out of 10
The lack of moral values or simply savagery for some reason often prefer not to notice, preferring to replace these words with others, for example: ' originality', ' unconventional thinking', 'irony'.
Bertrand Blieu from the beginning of the film prepares the viewer for the wide-ranging and charming absurdity that unfolds further in 'Prepare your handkerchiefs' A piquant plot, magnificent dialogues, wonderful music, a good selection of actors make you penetrate into the work of the director exactly until the moment when flirting with the feelings of the audience does not exceed the limits of what is permissible and reasonable. Behind this line begins a narrow and bumpy path, where it is easy to stumble and take bullying for irony, and perversion for the norm of life. Then fall into a pool of originality and freethinking and smear with deviations in the psyche.
Before you judge me for being narrow-minded and straightforward, think about what this film left in you and what feelings did it make you feel? I personally have a delight mixed with disgust. It seems that the cunning Blieu, as it turned out, a lover of pathologies, wanted to cause them to his viewer - thank you, no!
Desperate to satisfy his frigid wife Solange, or at least to make her pregnant, Raoul finds nothing smarter than to find her a lover. He chooses a physical education teacher Stefan, obsessed with Mozart’s music. Seeing this intelligent woman in a restaurant, the rustic Raoul immediately goes to business: “Sleep with my wife so that she would be happy, and then you will be my best friend.”
The perplexed physical assistant was not averse to accept such a free offer, but nature took its course: during intercourse, Solange had another migraine, and Stefan fled in panic. Obsessed Raoul is looking for him “beyond thirty lands” and even more insistently offers to make his wife a child. And then he just sends Solange to live with his teacher. However, with a new partner, she continues to lead a vegetative lifestyle: she does not read anything, does not listen to music, but only knits and cleans the house. “Maybe she’s just an idiot?” suggests Stefan. "No," Raul disagrees.
They begin to live as three people: they sleep in turns with their lover wife, who is increasingly moaning and still weeping for no reason from time to time. A real spiritual outlet for both is Mozart, whose music Stefan and Raoul not only hotly discuss, but also regret that they can not give Solange favorite composer.
If only Mozart was here!
- I'm sorry he's not with us!
But in the end, two males “in the prime of life” pass in front of a phlegmatic 13-year-old teenager Christian, who is always bullied by fellow commoners. Christian has a great IQ and Mozart prefers Schubert. But an unloved child from an aristocratic family, rather intuitively feels how to awaken a dissatisfied woman. So from a love triangle is formed an extreme perpendicular.
Bertrand Blieu radically changes the characters of his waltzers, this time turning them into peaceful inhabitants. However, changing social roles does not make them smarter in dealing with women. Having been released in the final from prison, two losers go straight to the house of a young opponent. Pregnant Solange knits another sweater, but to a different music, while her young boyfriend imperiously rolls billiard balls. Enviously gazing at this idyll through the grid of a high fence, Stefan notes Raul with bewilderment:
It's not Mozart!
- Who is it then?
- I don’t know, but it’s not Mozart.
Turning to a very sensitive topic, Bliet did not allow himself a single compromise. For the role of a minor hero, he invited 13-year-old Belgian schoolboy Riton Liebman, who is in no way inferior to French stars. Moreover, with a light hand Blie debutant so entered the taste of the filming process that “started in the actors” and today starred in more than sixty films, and two even put personally.
The role of a woman-object, who dreams of nothing but a child, was invited by Canadian Carol Lore. After Dushan Makaveev two years earlier pretty mocked her in “Sweet film”, forcing to perform all sorts of necessities, and she, being extremely discouraged by the result, did not find anything better than to sue the director, everyone believed that the career of a model girl will rapidly decline.
However, Bliet fully rehabilitated the ambitious North American actress. And although he made her commit at least one risky act - to nude in front of a minor, it must be admitted that he revealed a dramatic talent in her. In the spicy scenes with the young Libman, she discovered and demonstrated such a mental longing that there was no doubt about her acting abilities or the feelings of her heroine. Yes, it's love!
Quite unexpectedly, this picture was among the five contenders for a foreign-language Oscar (at that time it was still not as politically correct and puritanical as it is now), and, quite surprisingly, it was able to defeat all its competitors, among which was our White Beam Black Ear. But even the French, much more liberal in terms of amorous affairs, did not venture to award this provocative opus, limiting themselves to only one secondary "Cesar" - for the music of Georges Delereu, subtly stylized as Mozart.
Despite the prize shortage, Preparez Vos Mouchoirs is considered one of the main achievements of the French director. In addition, echoes of this picture will appear more than once in Bliet’s subsequent works. So in Stepfather (1981), Devaer’s character will become the lover of his 14-year-old stepdaughter, and in the comedy Too Beautiful for You (1989), Depardieu’s character will suffer furiously from Schubert’s music.
I think the purpose of Blieu's directing, his intellectual play, his favorite target and his idefix has always been Woman. Despite all his inimitable humor - without any irony - precisely with a capital letter. Like the Beautiful Lady of Block. Was and still is, of course (remember M. Bellucci in “How much are you worth?”).
So it is clearly not necessary to accuse this cute man of sneezing, smirks, haering, jokes, even though it is simply impossible to refrain from tearful laughter and laughing tears when watching his laustories!
He is first of all an uplifting poet and only then a skeptical philosopher and a downward satirist. As a poet and philosopher, he asks: Who is a woman? He always asks: who is she with, where is she, who is she in, who is she about, when is she, where is she, where is she? Does it even exist? Aren't men fictional? Isn't that crazy?
His Woman is unreal and sick as a fantasy, autonomous and illogical as a dream (which she decides to come true or not)... the dream of an old man, a young man, a child, fulfilled and unfulfilled - down with unambiguity - in all its genuine magnitude!
The sober-minded viewer, of course, is shocked by scenes of family life three or a thirteen-year-old boy kissing and without any complexes exposing an adult Beauty, but art has the right to allegory, and allegory is possible. If it's beautiful.
The creative psychology of Blieu (as a true Frenchman) is entangled in the beauty of the ever-inspiring Feminine and its mystery. And about her with penetrating directness and hearty clarity / intelligibility, you can hardly tell. That's not in the movie. An overabundance of imagination, innovation, metaphors and metamorphoses Blieu resist simplicity, directness and any edifying. Not head-on, not directly, not simply, but as if playing, the director still gives the answer to the question: who is she a WOMAN? You think, man? Just like a man?
Nope. Come on! It is a mystery with a double, triple bottom. A mystery without meaning, without answers, without decisions. Although you can answer all the questions about her in such a way as the hero of the incomparable Devaer (partner and brother in the misfortune of the young and thin Gerard Depardieu): “And maybe she is an idiot?”
It could be!
Family portrait on the verge of a nervous breakdown
Blier’s bold love triangle is a holiday of sparkling dialogue and ridicule of a wonderful life, when “everyone is deeply unhappy” – a kind of balm on the soul in French about the power of love, which everyone is submissive to. In the framework of the strange story of the tender creation of Solange, an unhappy child and the inseparable couple Depardieu – Delaware. On a simple petty-bourgeois philistine happiness in a house with a fireplace with an impulsive “genius of pure beauty”. Only in a Swedish family, so to speak. This mess inspiringly sounds the genius of Mozart “in stylates and white stockings”, mixes caring knitting, unhappy prodigy (hello to the depressed intellectual Marvin) and self-harm towards neighbors.
On the one hand, the plot about the gradual unconscious depreciation of the miracle of love seems to be even terrible, but as the author virtuoso ridicules it, this crisis of relations is tasteful, with Schubert’s Hungarian Melody, with a fountain of emotions, wrangling and gestures. It is quite possible that Blieu will again surprise someone and even offend with his sarcasticness, sniping of bizarre family values and naturalism. But nevertheless, this bright ironic and cynical film is not for everyone about what can happen in the minds, reminiscent of another Frenchman, once also quite conceptually mocking hopes and “light feelings”. - Alain René. Curious food for the mind, knitted sweaters and the magical power of art.
9 out of 10
Raul (Depardieu) is the husband of Solange (Laure), an unhappy and joyless woman. Unable to solve his wife’s endless silent problems, he invites a chance schoolteacher (Devrey) into the family life, but this is only the beginning of a complex love combination.
In this ironic and gentle picture, Bliet creates a world of men excluded from relationships with childhood and femininity. This is a world of allure culture, stupid gathering, failed male unions, unnecessary rescues. The main character is at the same time a victim of the joyless bustle of her lovers, and the holy grail, opened only to the innocent.
The French fixation on femininity, and on femininity immature, adolescent, mysterious, wanders from film to film, and is fully revealed in the heroine of Solange. A bang, a sweater, huge eyes are not a child or a woman, but an embodied metamorphosis, a butterfly pulling a silk body from a cocoon. Looking at it, the viewer, embraced by delight and horror, is ready to watch the secret rite of initiation. But Bliet’s comedic talent turns the initiation into a joke: men next to a woman do not grow up, on the contrary – she chooses a creature most similar to herself – a sophisticated, bored 13-year-old Christian in the summer camp.
Blieu creates his country Net-and-Not-will and inhabits it with the Peterpens (Solange, Christian) and their victims. Suppressed and unhappy in the world of adult problems and adult decisions (things, Mozart, sports, sex), Solange and Christian, breaking free, become – as children should be – cheerful, incomprehensible and heartless. Bliet claims that feelings are carefree, that a 13-year-old boy is more capable of really desperate and sensual love than adult men.
Bliet offers the viewer: “Prepare handkerchiefs!”, mourn the fate of two romantic bourgeois Raoul and Stefan. But do it with irony, because the magical land of childhood is closed to most of us, and if we have a lot of losers, then let’s wink at each other on this funny and sad path.