Man Is a Woman
France 1997
Reviewed by Jos Arroyo
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Paris, the present. Following a night of sex at a sauna, Simon attends the wedding of his cousin David. After his Jewish relatives ask him when he's going to get married, Simon expresses his desire for David but is rejected. As a rapproachement, David asks him to play some Klezmer music on the clarinet. Rosalie, a Yiddish soprano, is deeply moved by Simon's playing. The next day Simon rejects his uncle's lavish financial incentive to get married; as a result, his uncle, a banker, cuts off his overdraft.
Rosalie appears at the restaurant where Simon plays the piano. She invites him to hear her sing, but he thinks she's been sent over by his family as a prospective bride. Realising his mistake, he goes to her concert. He invites her back to his apartment only to find he's been evicted. They go to sleep at her place; there, he discovers that the devout Rosalie is saving herself for her wedding.
As his feelings for Rosalie deepen, Simon asks David to return his father's clarinet, which he originally gave David as a wedding present. David has already sold it; Rosalie buys the instrument back at auction.
Simon and Rosalie decide to get married and go to New York to meet her Jewish Orthodox family. At first, her father seems to loathe Simon, but after playing Klezmer music, he finally wins over the clan. They return to Paris to get married. David has marital problems and moves in with Simon and Rosalie. Rosalie realises that Simon desires David more than her. She tells him she's pregnant and, when he asks who the father is, she destroys his clarinet. Soon after, their marriage falls apart.
Review
Part of the pleasure of watching Channel 4's aptly titled series Eurotrash was witnessing the unlikely chemistry between co-presenters Jean-Paul Gaultier and Antoine de Caunes. Gaultier, the fashion fruitcake, was an unexpectedly well-chosen straight man to the heterosexual (and family man) de Caunes' unexpectedly camp clowning. Together they were coolly excessive. One of the fun things about Man Is Woman, then, is that de Caunes finally gets to play a gay man. Unfortunately, the director Jean-Jacques Zilbermann has straightened all possible campness out of his performance. What we get is a competent sensitivity that does more credit to de Caunes than to the film.
Man Is Woman aspires to be a farce with complex things to say about love, desire and identity. In this, it puts you in mind of what Josiane Balasko achieved in her love-triangle comedy Gazon maudit. But Zilbermann has neither Balasko's crack sense of timing nor her delicacy. Scenes such as Rosalie's mother chopping up a chicken are so crude they border on the garish while some of the more tender scenes between Simon and Rosalie lack emotional resonance. The film also lacks attention to important details: the accents used in the US scenes are completely off (no Brooklyn Jew speaks like the ones in this film) and their dubbing is incompetent. But tempting as it might be to dismiss the film as an innocuous sitcom, it would be unjust to do so.
Zilbermann and Gilles Taurand's excellent screenplay does in fact say quite complex things about love, desire and identity. Simon has distanced himself from his Jewish cultural identity and, though we are told he desires and fucks other men, neither the character nor the film demonstrate any acknowledgement of gay cultural identity. Until he meets Rosalie, and even after, the only thing that sparks Simon is his desire for David. Rosalie is his complete opposite: a woman, heterosexual, American, Orthodox, a prude.
What they share is the community of music and their love for each other. Their love of music, particularly the hauntingly joyous Klezmer, is also a tie to ancient roots, Jewish culture and ancestry (Simon's father played the same music on the same clarinet at Jewish weddings). Once the clarinet is broken, Rosalie's transformation into a sensuous woman involves a distance from her orthodox beliefs (represented by among other things, her inclusion of show tunes into her repertoire) while Simon's transformation involves the realisation that love can give a man a hard-on irrespective of his object of desire's gender. Both transformations involve choosing a fragmented and alienated self, over the restricted and restrictive certainties of tradition, culture and community.
Man Is Woman clearly aspires to affect us in a way similar to Klezmer: a sharply sad uplift that intensifies complex emotions without resolving, untangling or simplifying them. Equally clearly, it fails. Yet aspects of character and story linger in the mind for much longer than those of much better films.
Credits
- Director
- Jean-Jacques Zilbermann
- Producers
- Régine Conckier
- Jean-Luc Ormières
- Screenplay/Dialogue
- Jean-Jacques Zilbermann
- Gilles Taurand
- Based on a story by Jean-Jacques Zilbermann
- Joële van Effenterre
- Director of Photography
- Pierre Aïm
- Editor
- Monica Coleman
- Art Directors
- Valérie Grall
- ©Les Films Balenciaga/
M6 Films - Production Companies
- Régine Konckier and Jean-Luc Ormières present a Les Films Balenciaga/M6 Films co-production with the participation of Canal+/
Centre National de la Cinématographie and the support of sofica SofyGram - Line Producers
- New York Unit:
- Robin O'Hara
- Michael Johnson
- Production Manager
- Philippe Besnier
- Production Office Manager
- New York Unit:
- April Blair
- Unit Production Manager
- Daniel Dubois
- Unit Managers
- Alan Corno
- New York Unit:
- Claire Barnier
- Location Managers
- Bruno Charton
- New York Unit:
- David Graham
- Assistant Directors
- Régis Musset
- Nathalie Bezon
- New York Unit:
- René Veilleux
- Michael Lerman
- Script Supervisors
- Agathe Grau
- New York Unit:
- Peggy Sutton
- Casting
- Françoise Menidrey
- Camera Operator
- Georges Diane
- Steadicam Operators
- Patrick de Ranter
- Eric Le Roux
- Jean Jack Bréhier
- Art Director
- New York Unit:
- Stephen Beatrice
- Set Decorators
- Julie Sfez
- New York Unit:
- Kara Cressman
- Costume Designer
- Edith Vesperini
- Wardrobe
- Supervisor:
- Maria Oufkir
- New York Unit:
- Kathryn Nixon
- Make-up Supervisor
- Sophie Landry
- Supervising Hairstylist
- Eric Gaillard
- Titles/Opticals
- Marchetti
- Clarinet Solo
- Giora Feidman
- Rosalie's Vocals
- Rosalie Becker
- Rosalie Becker Recording Supervisor
- Eric Michon
- Music Consultant
- Eric Michon
- Songs
- "Longing", "Spiel Klezmer spiel", "The Happy Nigun", "Devekut", "A Prayer from Father Home", "Bublitchki" by Giora Feidman (clarinet), Dariusz Swinoga (accordion), Guido Jäger (contrebass), Michael Marx (guitar); "Varnishkes", "Der Rebe hot geheysn freyklekh zayn", "Yidl mitn Fidl", "You Are My Lucky Star", "Yankele" by Rosalie Becker (soprano), Nigel Foster (piano); "Hava Nagilah", "Der Rebe hot geheysn freyklekh zayn", "Bublitchki", "The Famly Danced" by Orient Express Moving Schnorers: Philippe Briegh (clarinet), Denis Cuniot (piano), Marc Slyper (trombone), Marc Benobou, Philippe Dallais (drums), Jean-Michel Clerc (tuba), Pierre Wekstein (saxophone/flute), Yann Martin (trumpet), Alain Dechoume (accordion), Robert Bonostre (guitar), Jean-François Cataire (contrebass); "Piano Bar" by Pascal Andreacchio; "Baroukh habo" by Yehuda Berdugo
- Sound Engineer
- Pierre Lorrain
- Mixer
- William Flageollet
- Studio Recording
- Eric Ferret
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Christophe Winding
- Sound Effects
- François Le Peuple
- Cast
- Antoine Caunes
- Simon Eskenazy
- Elsa Zylberstein
- Rosalie Baumann
- Gad Elmaleh
- David
- Michel Aumont
- Uncle Salomon Eskenazy
- Maurice Benichou
- Mordechai Baumann, Rosalie's father
- Judith Magre
- Mrs Eskenazy, Simon's mother
- Catherine Hiegel
- Mrs Baumann, Rosalie's mother
- Stéphane Metzger
- Daniel Baumann
- Edwin Gerard
- Yitshak Baumann
- Noëlla Dussart
- Nathalie
- Jean-François Derec
- Jean-René
- Sacha Santon
- Samuel Baumann
- Gilles Atlan
- Elisser Baumann
- Irène Zilbermann
- lady in red
- Jesse Joe Walsh
- Rabbi Fisher
- Maryse Déol
- cousin
- Jacqueline Segard
- red-headed woman
- Patrick Burgel
- auctioneer
- Roland Oberlin
- dressmaker
- Andrée Damant
- bank employee
- Henri Dorothé
- security man
- Louis-Serge Segard
- man in sauna
- Lily Reka
- Francine Zilbermann
- Raymonde Aknin
- Charles Aknin
- Lilly Scherr
- wedding guests
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Millivres Multimedia
- 8,982 feet
- 99 minutes 48 seconds
- Dolby Digital
- In Colour
- Subtitles
- French theatrical title
- L'homme est une femme comme les autres