The Intouchables movie review & analysis (2011)

French cinema has been known for its new extremity in the last two decades. A cinema that has two or three eras and a golden age, possibly one of the best in the world. However, the extremity established by Gaspar Neue, Ducournau, and others in these years is not the only aspect of French cinema. The other side of France in the twenty-first century might be represented by mediocre directors such as Jean-Pierre Jeunet or Jean-Pierre and Luc Besson. Characteristics of modern France, some seeking simplicity, others seeking complexity. The creators of the work we will be discussing are two of the most straightforward current filmmakers, Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache.

The movie is one of the most humanitarian as well as simple movies of the current century. A work of art that exploits animosity between races as the foundation of its conventional narrative, but does not drown in it and keeps the concept within its boundaries.

The evidence proves that the movie’s plot is true. However, it is somewhat distorted; for example, the main character has black skin when the reality is different. However, none of this is significant. According to Roger Ebert, this is how the film should be appreciated. Because the film is more than a mirror and a reaction to the outside world; it is a self-contained, humanitarian, and cinematic social action that creates a world that is even more real than the real situation, even though the theme and story are based on truth. To prove these theorems, we must analyze the film piece by piece.

In the first sequence, the film begins with Ludovic’s appealing music. A scenario that is reminiscent of a dream. What makes it feel more like a dream is the scene’s mise-en-scene, which is heavily discussed in both the opening and ending sequences. The camera is positioned inside the car, where our two major characters are seated. At first, we struggle to comprehend the relationship between them and we spontaneously imagine possibilities in our mind. The music remains a piano solo, and the pictures contrast. The contrast between the skin tone, the type of hair and beard, the opposite directions, and the flowing pictures changes from flow to focus and back again.

Following the initial sequence, which is still unknown to the spectator, they are met with a flashback, which the audience will notice later. In fact, the major tale begins here, although the movie’s opening sequence occurs at the end of the story. Placing that sequence at the opening of the work piques the curiosity of the audience by introducing them to an unfamiliar object. An incident that, willy-nilly, leads to the urge to watch the rest of the movie, and by the way, it was the best sequence that could have been chosen from the film’s path and started the work.

The main tale has begun, and we will learn about our characters’ relationships. We visit his home and observe the struggles there with Omar Sy who provided one of his best performances (or even the best) in this movie. If we had given this work to any other French filmmaker, he would have displayed and intellectualized racial hatred and pity to the point that the film would not even be a Z movie. But Toledano and Nakache went completely against the grain, arranging the connections in such a way that there is no sense of racial discrimination in the film. In fact, even the movie poster has the power to evoke such feelings in the audience, but the movie itself is quite complex. The man employs Omar Sy and gives him a job if he can demonstrate his abilities. Perhaps the biggest reason for this is something that is regarded as a major societal issue in various nations. That thing is: feeling pity for society’s minorities. An element that is not conceptualized and receives little attention in the film “The Intouchables”.

Because the man believes that others are coming to nurse him out of pity, the filmmaker (before the man himself) rejects everyone with multiple jump cuts in the initial interview scenes but pauses at Omar Sy and lets him speak. As if Omar has no concept of pity. He only came to get his paper signed, begin his task, and grab an egg at the end! This is what the man has been waiting for. So Omar begins to work.

As previously said, conflict can be the primary theme in critical movies. However, in “The Intouchables”, the contrary is the case. That is, the entire movie revolves around the contradictions of the two major characters. However, these contrasts are internalized and complement each other rather than criticizing each other.

The general public perceives the movie’s genre to be comedy-drama, although what we see is not a comedy.

So possibly the reason for this designation is the screenwriter’s and author’s sense of humor. However, the greatest filmmakers in cinema history were usually the most humorous. One of the rhythmic pillars of this picture is humor. That is, while it keeps the film’s rhythm flexible, it also improves the form and fills in the story’s gaps.

These gags are likewise based on contradictions. The inconsistencies exist in any country, but sadly in the country’s comedy movies, which are not comedies at all and have become a hilarious reaction to suit the false wants of society’s lower middle class, which is also a passive class.

The comedic moments in the movie are all executed well, from misplacing shampoo and glue due to their similar shapes to pouring boiling water on the owner’s foot to demonstrate his numbness (paralysis). They also allow the picture to keep its distance from drama concepts. Aside from these jokes, the director attempts to portray a tight and strange relationship between two couples of the same gender. A connection that exemplifies total brotherhood. The two are gradually merging. The man smoked with Omar, and with his own painting, Omar mocks art, or rather the painting industry, which is supervised by the bourgeoisie. He mocks even Vivaldi and Bach’s classical music, which is an example of its employment in our country’s television and radio broadcasts, along with today’s R&B, and impresses the man. As the two get closer, Omar continues to look after the man’s physical and mental well-being. Not out of feelings of compassion, but because of the work he is doing and the relationship he is attempting to establish.

Toledano and Nakache do not pay ransom to that flow in any of the parts where the film even portrays Omar as being pitied. In fact, there is no emphasis on music or any other emotional aspect that could derail the film (a clear example is the scene in which the man appears to have a seizure in his bed). There is no necessity for the film to depict any characters or performers in specific scenarios. This is exactly what Sam Mendes did in his masterwork, American Beauty, in which he conveys the events’ sense of normalcy and non-escapism with minimal drama or regular technical work. Slow-motion sights or painful violin music that alone results in tears.

However, the final chapter, which follows the flight of two people over the sky, is an unusual point in the narrative. Where two characters who had become one split apart and became autonomous. The movie’s structure breaks down here, but as soon as Omar Sy reappears and begins the first section, which was supposed to be at the conclusion of the work, the initial mental ambiguities are overcome and the opening sequence is defined for the audience.

The movie’s last sequence is one of the most expressive and grandiose axes of the form’s climax. Just like Omar arranges a date for the man. A meeting with a woman who was a minor character in the tale throughout the movie, and the minds of people do not focus on it. An appointment that was very essential to the man but was also forgotten. Omar exits the stage and Ludovic’s joyful music resumes. The woman meets and greets the man during the peak of the music; at the same time, the man has a peculiar grudge and the camera is focused on his face from outside the restaurant window. Then cut to Omar, the man’s point of view. While smiling, the mise-en-scene assembles something that automatically conveys to the audience an abstract sense of humanity through its fictional example. The color of Omar’s face contrasts with the white background and is totally in focus, while the music contributes to the setting. Again, switch to the man, then to Omar, and the camera gradually pulls up in slow motion mode, giving additional details about the two characters’ current lives in a portion of the frame. And then the title sequence…

The movie was primarily criticized for not being true to reality. Despite concentrating on drama and even changing the main character’s color and race, this film attempted to convey a certain ideological viewpoint. But those critics ignored the fact that reality has no proportion with the concept of art, and never will. Art is a created, autonomous, active, and frequently influential entity that is independent of its creator and from the world and is self-sufficient. A work that has no real-world relevance but returns to it with its own worldview. So, in practice, narrative and real-life occurrences are unimportant in art. What matters is the work’s form, which we know as form, and the original nature of the artwork. In art, The Intouchables become touchable.